Sabbatikos

We knew it was going to rain. We just did not know how much. With a day of bad weather in the forecast, we decided we didn’t want to join the elbow to eyelid crush of umbrellas in places like Shibuya, Shinjuku, or Ginza. Tokyo is crowded enough when the weather is good. Add thousands of umbrellas and it is a logistical challenge to walk down the street. So we made what seemed, at the time, a very sensible decision. We would go to the zoo.

We often visit zoos when we travel, and international trips are no exception so long as they are highly accredited. There is almost always an animal we have never seen before. Ueno Zoo, Japan’s oldest zoo, seemed promising. Given Tawny volunteers at the Woodland Park Zoo, she brought her badge and some stickers and the employees at Ueno Zoo loved it! Unfortunately for us, its final two giant pandas, twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, had been returned to China in January 2026, so there would be no pandas on this visit. But we found all sorts of animals we had rarely, if ever, seen before, including aardvarks, Pallas’s cats, shoebills, pygmy hippos, and Svalbard rock ptarmigans (we are planning to go to Svalbard next year, hopefully we’ll see some polar bears and now we know to look for rock ptarmigans).

We hopped on the train for the roughly thirty minute ride to Ueno. As soon as we exited the station the heavens opened and it started pouring. The rain was steady but manageable. We bought our tickets and entered the zoo, milling about the first few exhibits. We all had little travel umbrellas, which offered, initially, at least the illusion of protection. But soon the rain was blowing sideways and everything from the knees down was quickly saturated. Our shoes squished and our socks became sponges. It wasn’t long before I discovered my umbrella was not waterproof. It was barely water resistant. When it became saturated it started raining inside under the umbrella. It was like I was holding my own personal rain cloud above me.

Despite the weather, or perhaps partly because of it, Ueno Zoo was fantastic. There were almost no crowds. We could wander right up to exhibits that on any other Sunday may have been crowded. We saw a Japanese black bear and a polar bear. The tiger was very active, patrolling his enclosure through the rain.

By this point, however, we were soaked. Ueno Zoo is divided into two main sections, and although we had covered a good portion of the first half, we needed to regroup and sort ourselves. Our clothes were wet. Our shoes were sopping. My umbrella had betrayed me. Fortunately, there was a zoo cafe. We went inside, found a table, peeled off what layers we could, and ordered lunch. Once again Japan delivered a delicious meal. We had excellent udon, ramen, and a few beers. It was comforting, inexpensive, delicious, and most importantly, it was indoors. We finished lunch and although the rain hadn’t let up yet (it had actually intensified) we braved the outdoors and walked to the other side of the zoo.

First we encountered the large lake in the zoo, covered with foliage. Nearby were the pygmy hippopotamuses. Tiny hippos Moo Deng’s cousins, perhaps? It was like a celebrity sighting. Then we found the shoebill, who stared us down and won that starring contest. It is an extraordinary bird, tall and prehistoric looking, with a massive bill. We move on to an indoor exhibition where we came to the squat and fluffy Pallas’s cats, who are perpetually cute. Naturally, we loved them. We also found the aardvarks, another animal that we’d never seen and was curious to encounter.

Eventually even , pygmy hippos, and Pallas’s cats couldn’t keep us in the zoo any longer. We needed to get out of the rain, so we abandoned the zoo and headed into Ueno towards an arcade. We found another TAITO Station arcade and ducked inside, instantly swapping the soundtrack of pounding rain for a symphony of pounding bells, whistles and music. There were claw machines everywhere, so of course we tried again. And failed again.

We moved on to Taiko no Tatsujin, the Japanese drumming game which we had played years ago when we took Clara to an arcade on her first visit to Japan.

We followed this with shooting games and other arcade machines.

Upstairs we discovered an entirely different corner of Japanese gaming culture: electronic horse racing. Rows of people sat around elaborate simulated racetracks betting on digital horses as animated jockeys raced around giant screens. It was interesting to watch.

Eventually we ventured back outside, bouncing between a pharmacy, department stores, clothing shops, and whatever other buildings offered temporary shelter. We did a little shopping, but by this point our priorities were changing. Our socks and shoes were saturated. Our pants were heavy and wet.

It was time to head back to Shinagawa, squeeze out our clothes, and figure out how we were going to dry four pairs of shoes in a hotel room. Inside Shinagawa Station we found a Hitachino Nest brewery, instantly recognizable by its little owl logo. We had enjoyed Hitachino on previous trips to Japan and had even occasionally found it back home in Seattle. One of the unexpected realizations of a rainy day in Japan is that major train stations are practically shopping centers. Restaurants, bars, bakeries, convenience stores, department stores, boutiques, and supermarkets are often tucked inside or underneath them. You could probably spend an entire rainy afternoon inside some Japanese train stations without ever boarding a train. We settled in for a few Hitachino samplers instead and dried out slightly.

Eventually we made our way out of Shinagawa. We found a nearby ramen shop and ordered tonkotsu and Dan Dan ramen. The Dan Dan ramen was spectacular, essentially a Japanese ramen interpretation of Chinese dan dan noodles, with thin noodles submerged in a rich, spicy, pea-nutty broth loaded with sesame, chili oil, and heat. It was creamy, spicy, umami, and ridiculously satisfying.

After dinner, we headed back to the Tokyo Marriott. Tawny and Clara were ready to decompress, dry out, and call it a day. Ian and I, on the other hand, decided there was still enough life left in us for one final expedition upstairs to the Executive Lounge. We finished the evening with a couple of drinks and some desserts, safely dry indoors. It had not been the day we originally imagined, but in retrospect, it had been a pretty great one.

We went to bed early because tomorrow we were heading to Kyoto. Our bags were already on their way, thanks to one of the best travel services we had learned about in Japan: luggage forwarding. Rather than wrestling our suitcases onto crowded trains, we had simply sent them ahead to our next hotel. With hair dryers pointed into our shoes and socks hung around the room to dry, we settled in for the night, planning to board the Nozomi Shinkansen for Kyoto the next morning.