In the original itinerary Hakone was penciled in for today. Having skipped Ueno Zoo earlier in our time at Tokyo, we decided that since we've been to Hakone on both previous trips, that we'd substitute a day at Ueno Zoo instead, since it was closer, easier and much, much cheaper.

Breakfast time, and we filed into the tiny little Toyoko Inn elevators to the lobby for the standard Toyoko Inn breakfast experience. Scores of businessmen looking at their newspapers or phones, doing their best not to make eye contact with anyone, while everyone does their best to be quiet and look as solemn as possible, and hurriedly eat their breakfast efficiently, before running off to catch their taxi or train for a hard day at the office.

A couple of Aussie tourists in cargo pants and casual jackets with 3 young kids couldn't look more out of place in this scenario of we'd tried. And we're now so used to it that it is just normality for us.

Breakfast was, today, largely very ordinary. We were greeted with a sizable selection of curiously flavoured rice balls and pickled things which meant that the girls and I ate virtually none of it. Breakfast at hotels in the Toyoko Inn chain are a bit of a lottery. Some are great, with a fantastic variety of excellent breakfast dishes on offer. At others if you're unlucky you get strangely flavoured rice balls and pickled things. Coffee and juice seems to be a dependable staple however, so we at least had that.

On our way to the train into Ueno, all of us hungry, it didn't take much coaxing for us to head into a french bakery called Vie De France, which we came across in the underground walkway, which had a massive selection of breads, both sweet and savory, emerging from the oven to be placed straight on the shelves. Customers then load what they want onto trays and take them to the register. All this makes for probably the best bread products that I've ever had, and judging by the constant stream of people filing through the doors, I'm not alone.

Not being a great lover of crowds, I'm starting to tire of Tokyo trains and train stations. Gladly, after today we bid farewell to Tokyo. We found our way to Ueno via Tokyo station, and along with virtually the entire train full of people, we filed off the carriage, through Ueno station and into Ueno park which is right next door. Ueno Zoo on a Saturday might not have been my brightest idea ever.

The park itself was huge. It was actually quite a surprise to see so much open space, a luxury which we've not seen for the better part of 2 weeks now. The fact that it is in the middle of Tokyo makes it seem all the more unusual.

In the middle of Ueno park is a Starbucks. Seemed very out of place, but I didn't need an excuse to have a coffee, so we headed over there. Either we were there on a very strange day, or Ueno Park Starbucks attracts many clinically insane dog owners. Owners of all manner of toy dogs, such as miniature greyhounds dressed in zebra costumes (no I'm not kidding), and sausage dogs in sheepskin jackets, seemed to flock to this Starbucks to buy themselves and their dogs a coffee, while chatting with each other, presumably about dog stuff. A few crazies stood out the most, like the owner of a couple of miniature terriers who appeared to be carrying dog biscuits in every pocket, so he could feed every dog that he came across, and the crazy lady at the table next to us with the insane poodle, who wouldn't eat the cream off the top of it's iced coffee unless the lady spoon fed it.

We drank our coffees like normal humans and got the hell out of there as quick as we could.

Ueno zoo was, predictably, pretty crowded. I'm fine with that. It is Saturday, and I expected it. We jostled for position to see the Pandas, and saw some elephants doing...not much actually, and then began to realise that the park is undergoing fairly extensive renovations at present. One exciting section of the park housed gorillas, lions, tigers, and a few other interesting animals, and that section of the park was completely closed and off limits. Similarly the polar bear exhibit was mostly closed, and a single polar bear pool was available, and surrounded by a wall of people so thick that I didn't even bother standing in line to see it.

There were however plenty of exhibits of ducks, storks and other utterly bland birds which were available for us to queue up and view.
The quality of the enclosures didn't seem fantastic either. The birds were caged in, the ground dwelling animals had what appeared to be barely enough room to run around in, and the enclosures of the few bigger animals that we did see, like the bears, were just horrible. Every bear we saw appeared clinically insane, pacing in one direction, bumping into the wall, turning around and pacing the few steps back to the other side of the pen and repeating the process. It wasn't the worst zoo I'd seen, but for such a famous zoo I guess I was expecting a little more.

The zoo ran a typical "get some stamps and win a prize" competition, which the girls did. The prize was a choice of a few different items, one of them being a stamp pen. Isabelle took a handful of them when claiming her prize, and I assume just ignored the official when she was asked to put them back in Japanese. She got away with it, so it worked out well.

After a few hours in the zoo both the girls and we were a bit sick of it, but we headed to the second section of the park, which is filled with a bunch of much less interesting animals. It didn't take long for us to be sick of that side of the park too, so we made our way for the exit.

Ueno Zoo was good, but not great. Had all of the renovations been finished, and all of the animals been available to view, it would have been much better. Still, it was a good way to spend a day, and pretty exhausted we made our way to the train station to get back to Kawasaki before peak hour hit.

Selecting a nice looking Tonkatsu (pork snitzel) restaurant from the underground food arcade in Kawasaki, we were less than impressed when a posh looking Japanese couple were ushered in, and immediately lit up cigarettes, to the disgust of us and I think everyone else in the restaurant. While it is abhorrent, it is still legal in Japan to smoke in restaurants if the restaurant owner permits it, and this one obviously did. In our experience this is virtually non-existent in our travels through Japan, and this is the first restaurant in a long time that I can remember this happening in. Over the last 3 trips I've noticed attitudes to smoking in Japan have changed, with more and more areas designated non-smoking, and the prominence of smoking in public places, particularly around eating establishments, continues to decline and be put through even harsher restrictions.

With dinner done, and not wanting to set out for any new adventures tonight, because quite frankly we're exhausted, and the tomorrow sees us trekking up into the mountains to Nagano. Should be a very different experience to the crowds and rush of Tokyo.