19 November 2025
Portrait orientation required
Ueno to Tokyo Skytree
My hike was not long enough so this evening I set off for a stroll from Ueno to the Skytree. I have done this a couple of times before.
My route was a bit further south than I was expecting, and this took me past a surprise Shotengei, then shrine park and some restaurants under the tracks. All the things.
Once at the skytree, it was time to briefly look at the Christmas market, determine that the seating arrangements for eating overpriced things on sticks was not going to be to my satisfaction, and flee to the nearby safety of the food court.
I typed this before looking at the photos, I am keen to see how some of them came out because I found the street everyone else takes a photo of the skytree from, and indeed, there were others there doing the same.
Tomorrow is not a hiking day, it probably could have been, but I already declared myself to be safe from bears, so to risk heading back into bear territory again would be asking for trouble.
Surprise Shotengai. East of Okachimachi some way after the highway overpass. Owl themed, named 'Satake', I have no idea if that means owl. Most things were closed.
They take xmas decorations seriously here. The bottom levels are shops of some kind, but above that I think is peoples homes.
Asakusa now, which I visited when I was in Tokyo 3.5 weeks ago. Here is a beef store with a shrine in the roof.
The Shotengei here were all a bit quiet.
Hello. Already closing at 6:30pm.
Been there, done that.
Time to cross the bridge in the direction of the NHK golden slug.
First view of skytree. Portrait orientation. This one was a long exposure balanced on a gate.
Second view of skytree. Portrait orientation. A canal, a train overpass, and restaurants under it.
Nearby was a shrine lit with black lights. Weird.
They went all in on lights in this shrine park.
Final photo of skytree. Portrait orientation. I think this is the street most people take a similar photo from, but generally back a bit further with some zoom. I have no zoom.
Here is the xmas market. The tape on the ground for crowd control at the eating stalls seems optimistic.
The food court is more my pace. Actually the food court is my favourite place of all. I have been to this one before.
I lined up to get some sort of ginger pork hot plate thing, but in front of me were 2 deaf people seemingly ordering for 50 or more deaf people who kept coming up to change their order with sign language. I think it might be some kind of deaf Olympics, as I saw Ukraine Deaflympics jackets on some teens earlier. Maybe junior deaf Olympics, i don't know. Anyway, I could not wait for an hour to order, so I changed stores and got hot soba with pork and green onions. Not bad.
No plan for tomorrow yet, research time.