Ueno - park and museum

On Wednesday the weather was warm and sunny so we went to Ueno Onshi Park.

 It was packed with people here for spring flower viewing.

 Some women were dressed up all nice in kimonos.

 This is the Fountain of Frog.

 A very cute hopper.

 Cute ceramics and little succs.

 The Kiyomizu Kannondō.

 A bunch of ema boards in all sorts of languages.

 The remains of the Ueno Daibutsu. It was once a full-body statue of Gautama Buddha, but it was heavily damaged in an eathquake in 1923, and much of the metal was later melted down for use in the Asia-Pacific War. This face is all that's left.

An orange tree.

 A totem pole from the Tokyo Ueno Lions Club. LIONS: Liberty, Intelligence, Our Nation's Safety.

 The five-story pagoda.

 A komainu statue.

 The Ueno Tōshō-gū.

 Copper lanterns.

 A lot of detail in the front gate.

 Thousands of paper cranes.

 Grilling up squid.

After walking around the park, we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

This metal sphere is "my sky hole".

Yeah, that's what they called it.

The special exhibition was on Edo painting. A lot of it was very reminiscent of Chinese style brush painting.

We couldn't take pictures, but there were some that you might recognize, like Utagawa Kuniyoshi's paintings:

"At first glance he looks fierce, but he's actually a nice person."

"Mitsukuni Defying the Skeleton Spectre Invoked by Princess Takiyasha"

And here is Nasagawa Rosetsu's "White Elephant and Black Bull". Despite the title, everyone's favourite part seems to be the happy little dog.

We were allowed to take pictures in the "Citizen Galleries". There were a bunch of interesting paintings in a wide variety of styles. I only took pictures of a few of them. I guess the ones I chose to take pictures of might say something about my taste in art.

"Life Sparkles".

"Nostalgic Forest". Not the title I would have chosen, but hey, it's birch.

"Unfathomable Land".

"Forest of Falling Stars".

"Dead Weight".

"The Moon's Home".

"beyond".

"Ocean Holiday". I always like jellyfish.

"Cosmic Egg". This one felt like an old sci-fi movie poster or novel cover.

"Where From, Where To"

"Farewell". I really liked the sense of scale in this one.

"In the Fossil Garden at Night".
That looks like an opabinia down at the bottom. I love me some opabinia.

"Fairies of the Forest".

"Small World". It's very pink.

"We Are Born Crying".

"Disorganized Heart and Cherry Blossoms".

There was an ikebana (flower arrangement) gallery too. I always like the biggest, most audacious ones.

Mitsu-gusoku, the traditional arrangement of three objects in front of the Buddha, one of which is a flower arrangement.

Another "Citizen Gallery". 

"Parade".

"Holes".

Look at this dude.

"Spirits of Osuya Forest". Osuya comes from the name of the artist, Ohno Yasuo.

There was a whole wall of these forest spirits.

"Yoshihara City, West Diorama".

"Asakusa City, Twilight Sightseeing".

"Forgotten Pond".

We had Go-Go curry for dinner.

This guy was in Ueno Station.