Last week toddler girl and I, along with my friend Kim and her three kids took a trip to the zoo.  Ueno Zoo in Tokyo was the zoo we made plans to take the kiddos to.  Toddler girl and I did some reviews of the different animals at the zoo.  Also, learning a little bit about zookeepers.  This was also a fun learning field trip for toddler girl. Ueno Zoo was founded in 1882 and is the oldest zoo in Japan.  There are over 2,600 animals at the zoo.

We met near our local train station at 9:30 am.  I did not want to get caught in the morning rush to work train riders.  Our train ride was a little over an hour long, with one switch to another train line.  Once arriving at JR Ueno Station on the Yamato Line, there are signs to help you find which exit to take.  Taking the exit for the Ueno park/museums you will exit the train station and cross the street and walk towards the museums.  You will see the Museum of Western Art on your right and the Ueno zoo entrance will be straight ahead on the path.  There are a number of museums in the area including National Museum of Nature and Science Tokyo.  It is about a 5-10 minutes walk to the zoo.

The cherry blossoms were barely still there, but I’m glad I was able to see what few were still there.  I snapped a few pictures of the blossoms and a statue right out front the zoo entrance.

Once arriving I bought my ticket, toddler girl was free.  There was a stamp station, so toddler girl got a stamp for her stamp book. The first exhibit was the panda.  There were a lot of people at this exhibit; I had to pick toddler girl up to get a good view of the panda.  Other exhibits we saw were eagles, otters, monkeys, seals, tigers, owls, polar bear, elephants, kangaroos, flamingos, and a variety of other birds. There was even a monorail, which you ride to get to the other half of the zoo. We did not get to the end of the zoo and toddler girl and her buddy who is 3 years old were both getting sleepy.  We head back to the train station and once on the train, they were both sound asleep.  Everyone had a blast at Ueno zoo and I plan to take toddler girl back to see the rest of the zoo, as she didn’t get to see the zebras.

Monkey!

Toddler girl enjoying the zoo

Waiting on the monorail

Seals enjoying the warm sun

Ueno Zoo

Hours:  9:30am – 5:00pm | Close every Monday and December 29 – January 1

Admission: Adults (16-64) 600 yen | Seniors (65+) 300 yen | Students (13-15) 200 yen | Children (0-12) Free

Address: 9-83, Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-8711, Japan

Phone: 03-3828-5171

The zoo does not have a parking lot, but there are paid parking lots within the vicinity of the zoo.

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