Of course with two days at Ueno Zoo, I also checked out the other animals to see there besides the pandas! It’s quite a large zoo with plenty to see split over two sections. While I did spend most of my time in the West Garden where the panda area was, on my first day I entered via the main gate so started my day in the East Garden and spent some time there on both days. Ueno Zoo was very affordable, entry was 600 yen for an adult ticket (approx. £3) and was open all day, so a great value for money day out – and the tickets have very nice pictures on them, would have loved a panda but was very happy to get an Aye Aye ticket along with seeing Aye Aye’s for the first time!
East Garden
In the East Garden section there did feel like there were fewer animals here and yards were more spread out across the park. The highlight here was the Gorilla Woods area, the space looked great for both the animals and the guests and there were many different aspects of the habitat to see – plus I got lucky and happened to be stood at a window that the silverback walked right up to after I got there! There was also a baby gibbon to see and that was very cute.
West Garden
Most of my time here in the West Garden was spent with the pandas, but there are a lot of other animals to see here too, from as big as giraffes and rhinos to small creatures in the vivarium or the small mammal house. I really liked the vivarium space and the range of reptiles and amphibians. But my favourite non-panda animal in the West Garden were the aye ayes – I’ve never seen them before! They’re a nocturnal species (the largest nocturnal primate), so living in a dark house, not only was flash photography not allowed, there was no photography or phone use in the building, so I don’t have any pictures to show, but it was a great experience and you can search for images online.
