Tokyo, I am always here. 6) Ueno

cherry blossom                     

Ueno

In Ueno, there are some famous places you must go in spring. It is because you can have a cherry blossom party called Ohanami there.
Ueno park is one of the best places where cherry blossoms are beautiful.  Through there, you can go Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Zoo. You can see various art in the Tokyo National Museum. Ueno Zoo is the famous Zoo which there is giant panda of which name is Ri Ri that is male and Shin Shin that is female. Its admission is free only on the national holiday of Japan though it is too many people to see. Nowadays, the Zoo always announces whether you can see giant panda or not, and whether it is crowded or not though I've never heard the day when it's not crowded but suddenly you're stopped to see the giant panda, because of a crowd, the giant panda is feeling uncomfortable. l think that it is hard for the panda to be visited by many people. However, people want to see the giant panda. I also saw it when I was a junior high school student with my sister and brother.  When our family moved to Tokyo from Osaka despite there would be probably panda in Osaka too. Incidentally, that time, panda we saw in Ueno Zoo was muddy but tired in the rainy day. Our imagination that we could see actively playing beautiful white panda was unfortunately broken.
I think that we are planted its image by medias and goods designed panda. It is because there are a lot of goods designed panda in Ueno. When you get off your train at Ueno station, you can take pictures with big stuffed panda.

big stuffed panda

                             
                                   
Also in Ueno, there is one of famous toy shop Yamashiroya. Although it sells our company's products, panda goods are more popular than ours. You can disgustingly see a lot of Cawaii which means pretty products that are stationary goods,  character's goods and toys there.

 Gashapon

And then, before your go into the shop, you must enjoy Gashapon capsule. It's called "gacha gacha" that is capsule toy machine. By putting money and turning a knob, a capsule containing a small toy comes out. It's like a vending machine. However, somehow, the gacha gacha machine is really fun more than a vending machine. I spent all my money l had when I was a kid. My mother was strongly angry at me. Please be careful.

Returning to the story of cherry blossom, I like to see cherry blossom in silent areas. I know same areas which are along the river in my town. In there, we can see fireworks of Tokyo Disney Land and Cherry blossom blooms.
Fireworks is called Hanabi. Hana means a flower and Bi is used a fire of Kanji character. Japanese fireworks can express extremely delicate pattern, further, in Japan, you can play with the small fireworks by your hand. Can you imagine? By having a mini fireworks stick by your hand, and set fire to it. Hanabi spreads downward your hand. I think that other countries don't have it and if it is summer, you can play with Hanabi wearing Yukata. Yukata is a kind of Japanese traditional Kimono. You can wear Yukata easier than usual Kimono, but only in summer, you can wear it.