Ueno Zoo and Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science

Fourth day in Tokyo. We decided to visit Ueno Zoo and Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science. We traveled to Ueno Park via Ginza Line (we didn't use the fastest Yamanote Line, because we had 72-hour unlimited ride ticket for Metro Lines). The zoo is located some 500 meters away from the station. 

Ueno Zoo is the oldest zoo in Japan, which starts operational since 1882. The zoo operation hours are from 9 am to 5 pm, and closes on Monday. The entrance fee was 600 Yen for one adult, and 300 Yen for senior citizen.

Ueno Zoo is divided into two different zones- east and west gardens. We can see most of the nice exhibits and animals at the east garden- tiger, gorilla, polar bear, crane, seal, birds, primates and many more. West garden consists of a big lake with a lot of water birds, a few animal houses, and several big animals, including rhino, giraffe, and okapi. Some sources state that the zoo currently contains more than 2600 animals. That's an enormous number for a small zoo. More information about the zoo is available at Ueno Zoo official website.

Our main target in Ueno Zoo were polar bear, gorilla, and okapi. The last time we saw a walking polar bear was 20 years ago in Singapore Zoo. We had not seen a real okapi and gorilla before, except through National Geographic and Animal Planet. We reached the zoo at 11:30 am and left around 2 pm. We took a short rest and walked to National Museum of Natural and Science.

There were limited choices of food and drinks in the zoo, so bringing our own snacks could be a good idea. The resting area were packed with visitors. If you wish to stay in the zoo for a longer time, a comfortable footwear and an umbrella is a must. By the way, it was our first experience to queue up in front of several exhibits in the zoo to see the animals. Frankly, we were amazed by the ability of Japanese zoo to squeeze so many animals into a single place, but at the same time, quite sad to see the animals being packed in small exhibits.

Ueno Park is big, which consists of several museums and a zoo. It is located on the other side of the road, outside of the metro station (upper left). We need to cross the road, turn right and walk straight to the main entrance of Ueno Park, which is located opposite of JR Railway Station. Then, turn left after the JR Railway Station and continue straight till we reach the entrance of the zoo (upper right). The ticket can be bought outside of the zoo (lower right). The junction to the east or west is located nearby the entrance.

Gorilla (upper left), polar bear (upper right), and okapi (lower right) were the animals that we would like to see in Ueno Zoo. We were lucky to meet them all (although a little disappointed that okapi didn't turn its face to us). We saw some interesting indigenous primates in the zoo as well.

A beautiful local bird.

 A few exhibits had nice landscape and design, but the animals couldn't be found.

We visited the zoo on Friday. 12:30 pm. The whole zoo was crowded with school kids. Well, children have free entrance.

We had to line up to see some popular animals, such as panda and tiger.

It is fun to see kids with different colour of hats.

Monorail connecting the east and west gardens is a big tourist trap. First, we had to beat the long queue (best estimation, should be more than 15 minutes), then paid for the ride (yes, it was not free), and board on a few minutes ride. There is a sky-bridge connecting two gardens. We need only 3 minutes to cross the bridge.

West garden from the bridge. We can see the lakeside is full with visitors.

The seat under shades were all occupied nearby food trucks (upper left). There were two trucks, selling grilled beef and rice, and takoyaki (upper right). We tried takoyaki (lower right). The taste was good, and the price was reasonable- 5 takoyaki with 500 Yen, just a bit more expensive than takoyaki in Malaysia. We could see the queue at monorail station from the food truck. The queue line extended to the outside of the station. 

National Museum of Nature and Science is located beside National Museum of Western Art, some 300 meters from Ueno Zoo. The museum was established in 1871.  It is divided into two parts- Japan gallery and world gallery. Japan Gallery is interesting, but the Global Gallery is more attractive. We would recommend to spend more time at world gallery. We stayed in the museum for two hours and left at 4:15 pm.

Normal entrance fee for the museum was 620 Yen for adult. The operation hours are from 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays, and 9 am to 8 pm on weekends. The entrance were free during our visit as it was their museum day. Lucky, lucky!!

2 pm, the walkway in Ueno Park was crowdy (upper left). The entrance is beside the old museum building (upper right), with a clear sign in front of it (lower right). There is a big whale statue in front of the museum.

Free museum admission for all! Theater 360 is an attraction in the museum, with long queue. It was not very attractive for us, especially after we visit DisneySea. The narration was in Japanese. Anyhow, it still worth to take a look.

Hachiko, a white Akita dog which waited for its master at Shibuya station for nine years following its master's death. It is a true story of loyalty, which has been depicted in a few movies. Behind Hachiko are the real bodies of two dogs- Taro and Jiro, which had survived in Antarctica for 11 months, after being abandoned by the research teams. The story was screened by the movie Eight Below.

Hachiko statue marks the place where the loyal dog waited for its master. The statue is located in Shibuya.

Skeleton of a plesiosaurus in Japan Gallery is displayed on the top floor of Japan Gallery.

The global gallery is amazing. Massive dinosaur skeletons, such as T-rex and apatosaurus are available. These dinosaur skeletons were imported from other countries.

Triceratops skeleton. 

There are other skeletons, such as whales, elephants, and even saber tooth animals available in the exhibition halls.

A Zero fighter plane is exhibited in science hall.

National Museum of Nature and Science is worth a visit. Our advice, breeze through Japan Gallery, and concentrate our time at Global Gallery. Japan Gallery is located in the same building with ticket counter, with older design. Global Gallery is in another building behind the Japan Gallery. There are not many resting area in the exhibition halls, but seats are available outside. Food were available at the canteen, but we didn't buy anything there. 

We took our late lunch at a ramen shop nearby Metro Station. Then we went to Shibuya after our visit. We bought some cheap items at Shibuya. Follow us next to know more about our accommodation, shopping, and how we moved around Tokyo.

[Tokyo DisneySea] [Asakusa and Sky Tree] [Tokyo Tower and Imperial Palace]

[Ueno Zoo and Museum of Nature and Science]

[Tokyo Accommodation, Food, Transportation, and Shopping] 

[All Our Destinations]

Taipei Zoo and Maokong Mountain (Taipei Trip Day 2)

First day in Taipei, we visited Huaxi Night Market and Mengxia Night Market. Second day, Tapei Zoo, Maokong Mountain, Elim Bookstore, and Rauhe Night Market were in our itinerary. We left our hotel early at 8:30 am. Our first breakfast in Taipei- some sandwiches and wheat drink from Seven-Eleven in Longshan Temple MRT Station. 

Taipei Zoo can be accessed easily through MRT brown line. We took MRT from LongShan Temple Station to Zhongxiao Fuxing Station, then from there to Taipei Zoo Station. The zoo was just about 100 meters from the Taipei Zoo Station. The MRT was very congested during rush hours, but we still managed to stand in front of the zoo's main gate at 9:40 am.

The entrance fee for Taipei Zoo was NTD 60 per adult. Unbelievably cheap for a zoo that maintains a large diversity of animals, including giant panda and koala bear. The zoo opens from 9 am to 5 pm (ticket counter closes at 4 pm).

Well, we were early. Not many were queueing at the ticketing counter and at the entrance. We entered the zoo smoothly using the easy card. Taipei Zoo was built along a slope, so the best strategy is to take the zoo's shuttle train to the highest point of the zoo, then walk the way down back to the entrance. We need to pay NTD 5 exact change for the shuttle train at the station.

Taipei Zoo was very organized, and we had no problem to see all our favourites- aviary, penguins, grey wolf, red panda, panda, and koala. It was a great experience for us to walk through the best reptile house ever, to see African elephants in close distance, and watching a pod of hippos munching their breakfast as well. A few exhibits were empty (or maybe we could’t find the animals), but overall experience was great! By the way, the zoo was clean, with vendor machines selling snacks and drinks with fair price scattered around. Umbrella and good walking shoes are required for the best visiting experience. We stayed in the zoo till 1:15 pm, well, we never expected to stay there that long. We didn't manage to see all animals in the zoo, as that required one whole day.

 

Taipei Zoo entrance can be easily recognized (upper left), with a huge artwork placed in front of it (upper right). From the MRT gate, the foot prints of different animals (lower left) will lead us right to the entrance of the zoo.

From the entrance, we can see the visitor information center on our right, the food court and the souvenir shop on our left. The train station is nearby the souvenir shop. Click on the photo for a bigger panoramic view.

Shutter train with wheels on road (upper left). We need to pay NTD 5 exact change for the train service. Our first stop, the aviary (upper right), followed by the penguin house (lower left) and the reptile house. The reptile house was clean, organized, with amazingly beautiful exhibits.

The zoo was filled with greenery (upper left), with some beautiful items as decoration.

Panda house was located near the entrance, but we saved the best for last. The panda house is big and fully air-conditioned (upper left). One of the panda was very active during our visit (upper right). We took our lunch at the nicely decorated cafe located on the upper level of the panda house (lower row).

The koala exhibits are located beside the shutter train station. These cute doll-looking critters could hang on trees without a single move for a long period of time, to an extend that we thought the animals inside were just toys. The favourite eucalyptus of the koalas were stated beside the exhibits (right).

The souvenir shop in the zoo with cute animal dolls.

We stayed in the zoo for about 4 hours, twice longer than our initial plan. But couldn't help, the zoo was like a big magnet for us. For us, it was easy to navigate through the zoo. The visitor's map was clear, and we could see most of the animals by following the main walkway down the hill. Comfortable footwear and umbrella are important. Sufficient drinking water is required as well. Of course, we can always get our drinks from the vending machines. For all animal lovers, Taipei Zoo is a big YES for us!

Our next destination- Maokong Mountain via Maokong Gondola (猫空缆车). The "gondala" is the glamour name given to the "cable car". The gondola station is 350 meters from Taipei Zoo MRT Station. We paid NTD 100 for one trip to Maokong Station (one stop). The original fare was NTD 120 per adult per trip. But we got NTD 20 discount because we paid with the easy card for the entrance of the zoo before paying for gondola with the same card,in a same day. More information about Maokong Gondola is available at its official website.

Maokong Gondola Station can be seen from the Taipei Zoo MRT Station (the building with blue signage). There is no covered pedestrian walkway connecting these two stations.

There are two types of gondolas- crystal cabin and normal cabin. While caught by long queue waiting for crystal cabin, there was nobody queueing at normal cabin line (upper left). The gondola travels 4 km in 25 minutes to Maokong Station (upper right). For crystal cabin, we could see through the glass at the bottom of the cabin (lower right). To compare the experience, we took our return trip in normal cabin, and well, not much difference. In fact, the bottom view was not that great after all.

The window view is much better than the bottom view. In a sunny and hazeless day, we could see the 101 tower far behind the hills (right side).

The view from the Maokong Station. Green, peaceful, but not beautiful.

Once out of Maokong Station, we need to make decision- turn right or left (upper left). We started with turning right. The small road led us to the tung tree walkways. Unlucky for us, we found no tung tree flower there (although the season should be April - May). We missed the yellow lupin flower blossom as well, and what left for us was a boring garden with green flower trees (upper right and lower right). Another dissapointment, the maple pavillion had a total of 4 maple trees only.

This little pond ease a bit of our dissapointment.

Well, we took the same way back to Maokong Station, then to the left we turned (upper left). We walked by several eateries (upper right). These eateries should provide good view over Taipei city, but we couldn't see much that afternoon due to the heavy haze far below the mountain. It took us around 25 minutes to reach the Tea Research and Promotion Center of Taipei (lower left). Visitor should not travel beyond the center as there was nothing interesting for tourists anymore beyond that building.

Tea Research and Promotion Center of Taipei is not a big building, with a small receiption (upper left) area that leads to a room displaying a few tea processing machines (upper right) and a corner for the selected tea planting companies to promote their products (lower right). We bought some "pao-zhong" and "tieh kuang-yin" tea leaves from the centre, and thanks God, following the instruction given by the promoter, we finally found a small patch of tea farm on Maokong Mountain (lower left).

Maokong Mountain was far below our expectation- weather was not cooling, no flower blooming, haze blocked the nice view, some unmanaged and dirty sites... it would be a total dissapointment if we didn't bought the tea leaves there. We would advise to visit the place only if you are a big fan of tieh kuan-yin and pao zhong tea leaves, or you are 100% sure that the flowers are blooming along the mountain paths. By the way, there will be a lot of foot workout up there, so wearing comfortable walking shoes is very important (unless you wish to rent a bike), umbrella and drinking water are essential as well. 

The tea plantations there were operated in small scales, so the stunning view like the plantations in Cameron Highlands should not be expected. By the way, there are plenty of eateries and food stalls up there, and you might wish to try the tea ice cream there. The taste, just average. 

This is the tea and choc ice cream at Maokong, speacial with a cat wafer on it but tasted average.

We took off from Maokong Station at around 4:30 pm and reached Taipei city center at around 6 pm. We stopped at Elim Bookstore, bought some books, and continued our trip to Raohe Night Market. Follow us now!


More about our experience in Taipei:

[Taipei Huaxi Night Market- Our First Stop in Taipei] [Taipei Zoo & Maokong Mountain]

[Raohe Night Market] [Yehliu Geopark]
[Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall and Taipei 101] [Ximending, a Good Place for Evening Stroll]
[Yangmingshan National Park] [Shilin Night Market and National Palace Museum]
[Jiufen and Jinguashi] [Zhongzheng Memorial Hall, Taipei]
[Staying Around Longshan MRT Area]

More about our experience in Kaohsiung and Tainan:

[Historical Places in Tainan] [ Food in Tainan] [Getting around Tainan]

[Attractions in Kaohsiung] [Trip to Cijin District, Kaohsiung]  [Kaohsiung Night Markets] 

[Getting around Kaohsiung]

National Zoological Park

Zoo Negara or National Zoological Park is BIG- 110 acres with more than 5000 specimens, crosses over 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. We spent a solid 5 Saturday hours there, from 10:30 am to 3:30 pm, and yet with last one hour "running with a brief glance" through the zoo, chased by exhaustion. The zoo was crowdy on the weekend, but yet to reach to maximum limit of 3000 visitors per day. Limiting the number of visitors is a good practice to spare some privacy for the animals.

Our photo at the main entrance of Zoo Negara.

Our first stop was the exhibit with giraffes. The giraffes were active, moving here and there in the exhibit. Then, we moved to the amphitheatre for the animal show. The main actors were two sealions, a "senior" parrot, a "young" hawk, and a "freshy" binturong.

 Our photo with giraffes. They were active and like to "march" in their exhibit.

Amphitheatre was full with visitors. Make sure that you come early to secure a nice seat. The theatre is nicely shaded.

After the show, we visited Tunku Abdul Rahman Aquarium with tropica fishes, the bee museum (run by private company from Malacca), and many species of animals before we took our lunch at The Wild Cafe. The cafe serves western food with reasonable price (around RM 8 per person). The aquarium was bigger than what we had expected, with good air conditioning, and most of the aquariums were well decorated and maintained. While for the bee museum, it looked more to a shop selling honey than a real museum.

Betty and Kelly at the entrance of the aquarium (upper left), inside the aquarium (upper right), the forest reserve beside the aquarium (lower left), and our photo just ourside the bee museum.

We continued our journey to Reptile House and Amphibian World, Savannah Walk with a really large area of grassland, with zebras, ostriches, sable antelopes, scimatar horned oryx, and white rhino, Ape Centre with Orang Utans, and Insect Zoo with mostly dead specimen.

Our photo at the entrance of Reptile House.

Aldabran Tortoises from Madagascar, the second largest tortoise in the world after the Galapagos Tortoise in Amphibian World (upper left). Camouflaged iguana in it's comfy Reptile House (lower left). Sable antelopes and scimatar horned oryx grazing on grassy plain in Savannah Walk (middle), white rhino with toy (upper right), and orang utan in Ape Centre.

Cute entrance to Insect Zoo (left) with the specimen of tarantula, the largest spider in the world from South America (middle). Butterfly garden in Insect Zoo was lack of butterfly as it was still under development. We hope we can get more butterflies in future.

The Mammal Kingdom is just beside the Insect Zoo, with the exhibits showcasing small and cute raccoons, capybara, sunda loris, and leopard cats, and fierce pumas, leopards, and hyenas. Along the road leading us back to the zoo's entrance, we had the opportunity to say hello to Bengal Tigers and African Lions before we made our final stop at Bird House.

An aftermeal nap in hot lazy afternoon is good. Capybara, the largest rodent from South America knew that well (upper left). A puma was grooming under the shadow of the trees (lower left). Unsettled Bengal Tiger was deciding whether to keep itself dry or to take a refreshing dip in the water.

Aviary in Bird House allowed us to get close to the birds. Used to the regular visits, the storks showed no heed to our appearance.

We were amazed by the biological control of mosquitoes applied by the zoo. We didn't get a single bite during our visit. The food and beverages, as well as the souvenirs available in the zoo were reasonably priced. All the pedestrian path were well shaded and covered by trees.

We really have to put both of our thumbs up to the management of the zoo, Malaysia Zoological Society for the excellent management and the designs of the caged habitats for the animals. It is in fact an excellent zoo if we put into consideration that the zoo is run by a non-governmental organization.

Vivid coloured electricity powered shutters offer quiet and confortable lift minus the air pollution. We need to pay RM 2 for the ride.

The Wild Cafe is one of the F & B stalls offers good and reasonably priced food (left). Souvenirs are available at the shops beside the amphitheatre and at the main entrance.

The lake that sits in the middle of the zoo dotted with free roaming storks, ibises, egrets, swans and pelicans. The birds are well fed and have no intention to leave their sweet home in the zoo.

Malaysia Zoological Society had prepared a great website for Zoo Negara with almost everything that you need to know. So please take a look. Btw, the map for the zoo is provided at the entrance with RM 2 per copy. If you wish to get a free copy, please download and print the map from here.



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