Even though we are in the midst of cherry blossom season, it is pretty cool and we wanted to do something indoors. When my husband suggested we go to the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno Park, my son started jumping up and down. We knew the park would be packed with people viewing the cherry blossoms, but decided to go anyway.
The Ueno Station exit and the park entrance were so packed, I ended up picking up my son and carrying him to get through the crowd. The "what were we thinking" thought crossed my mind, but then the crowd thinned and I wasn't so stressed by it. The moment my son saw the life-sized blue whale out front, I knew the crowds were worth it.
After paying for admission for my husband and myself (our son was free, but we were ¥620 each), we grabbed the English museum guide. As we opened it up, I was so surprised to see how huge it was. There are 12 galleries with all sorts of history and science exhibits. We showed the map to our son and let him pick where we would go. There was no way we could see everything!
First we headed to the Japanese People and Nature exhibit. There were all sorts of interesting things from historical Japan on display, like figures of people in various time periods. The most interesting thing was a mummified woman that was discovered in a huge clay pot. They had a video playing above the display that gave more information, but unfortunately I didn't understand it.
The reason we focused on this exhibit was Hachiko, the famous Japanese dog that waited for his owner for years after his death. They have the actual taxidermied dog. My son knows the story as Hachiko, as do most Japanese kids, and he was very excited to see the big cream colored dog. We didn't realize they also had another very famous Japanese dog, Jiro, who was left in Antartica during a trek that went awry but survived for years.
After fawning over the dogs for a bit, we wandered down several floors and over to the other building to find the dinosaurs. My son had his heart set on seeing those huge reptiles. The gallery was packed full of skeletons. I don't think I have ever seen so many dinosaurs in one place. Despite being a bit on the crowded side, it was a sight to be seen. There was even an elevated walkway to get a different view of the bones.
For the final gallery of our day, my son chose to see the Animals of the Earth display. It is a glass room filled with taxidermy. It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing, but once I did it was very interesting. There were animals from all over the world, standing (some posed kind of strangely) together. Some of the animals were from the Ueno Zoo, including the pandas. Honestly, that creeped me out quite a bit.
When we were done, I was quite tired. So, we headed up to the roof to sit a bit in their herb garden. The sun was shining and the breeze was just right.
As we headed out of the building, we noticed one more exhibit that we couldn't pass up. There was a room filled with biological research completed by the Emperor. It was really neat to see the bugs and butterflies captured on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. I didn't know he was so interested in science, but there were all kinds of awards of recognition for his work.
The museum was incredible, but we barely chipped the surface. There is a lot of things to see in there. I guess that means we'll have to go again another day to see another little piece.
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