April 4th: Ueno Park

April 4th would be our first full day. I did get a surprising 5 hours and 20 minutes of sleep. Art was fine. Mom seemed OK even though she did get up several times with the time change.

We were surprised that the breakfasts at the Toyoko Inns had improved since the last time we were there. It used to be just a rice ball, pickles and miso soup. This was wonderful!

At 9:00, we walked next door to the Aomono Yokocho train station. It was a work day Wednesday and the trains were crowded.

Since cherry blossoms had bloomed early this year, we thought we'd miss the peak blossoming.

Apparently, Tokyo had a cold snap soon after that early blooming so the cherry blossoms actually waited for mom to arrive.

The flowers at Ueno Park were absolutely stunning!

We walked along the floral tunnel of cherry blossoms and couldn't stop smiling.

We walked a short distance to the Ueno Toshogu shrine and saw a lot of street food being sold.

We have seen the pandas at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington, D.C., but mom hasn't so Art thought it'd be fun to have mom get the panda experience at Ueno Zoo close by.

We walked over to see this massive crowd waiting for their tickets to get in.

When we entered the zoo we saw that the panda line was 50 minutes LONG!

Yikes!

We saw other beautiful animals instead. This mother and baby were so sweet.

Incredibly, we found a place to have our lunch under this gorgeous cherry blossom tree.

While we were having our yaki soba, cherry blossom petals swirled around us. Children were happily chasing after the petals.

There was a little Thai pavilion and beds of colorful lupins.

We have fun looking for manhole covers in Japan that have distinctive images of what that area is known for.

I love seeing cherry blossoms sprouting right out of the trunk. There are quite a few varieties of cherry blossoms. These are the five petal variety.

We went back to the hotel and rested before going out again that evening to Shinagawa where we met up with my mother's youngest brother and his wife.

Actually, since there is a 12 year age difference between my uncle and mother, my uncle is only 3 years older than Art. My aunt is only a year older than me.

My cousin and his wife and another cousin also joined us for a rollicking great time, laughing at the differences between Western and Asian customs.

Uncle treated us to a huge assortment of delicacies that we'd never had before. These are only a few of the dishes that were served.

By the time the soba noodles came, I honestly couldn't eat another bite. But then how hard is it to eat a little sherbet?

A very poignant moment came when my uncle and aunt walked us to our departure point. Everyone knew this would be the last time we'd see each other. Mom would not be taking another trip to Japan and they don't like to fly either.

So the parting was sweet, sad, yet happy that we'd had this final time together and brother and sister could say goodbye.