Ueno Zoo, an hour and a half before closing

I visited the Ueno Zoological Gardens last summer. I had been to several places before the zoo, so I arrived about an hour and a half before closing. (To be honest, I just didn’t want to be roasting under the sun for hours—LOL!) To my delight, the zoo was still bustling with activity. Many animals were out, still chilling and eating. 😛

I’m thinking about going back since I missed the bears and pandas. Apparently, I’ve only been to the zoo’s West Garden. I didn’t see the gorillas, tigers, elephants, and many more. Ueno Zoo is close to the Ameyoko shopping area, anyway, where I’m definitely hitting up (again) for some amazing crab legs. 🤤

Ueno Zoo is the first modern zoo in Japan, as well as the flagship of zoos in the country. It houses 3,000 animals from 300 different species. The zoo has twin pandas, which I didn’t get to see since there was a long af queue. Since I only had a limited time that afternoon, and the zoo closes at 5 PM, I decided to pass on seeing them.

The zoo is a walking distance from JR Line Ueno Station, Chiyoda Line Nezu Station, and Hibiya and Ginza Line Ueno Station. There are other stations, I believe. This website should have more information. The entrance fee for adults is JPY600.