On a spring afternoon, Ueno Park resembles the last train home on a Saturday night. The cherry blossom lined sidewalks erupt with locals and tourists alike, all scrambling for prime real estate under the sacred trees. Japan's largest public park is an eclectic mix of sights and sounds. Art afficionados can easily get lost in one of the many worthwhile galleries, notably the Tokyo National Museum, the National Science Museum, the Museum of Western Art and the Tokyo Metropolitan Modern Art Gallery. The Ueno Zoo is nearby and is popular among families with children. Most of the museums close around 5 pm and dining facilities are overpriced and nothing spectacular.

Follow the masses away from the station towards the small street vendors for bargain shopping and cheap street eats. Shouting shopkeepers compete for your attention, and your pocketbook selling anything from cheap designer sunglasses to pounds of the day's fresh catch. Small stands sell mouth watering skewers of pineapple and strawberries for 100 yen, chocolate dipped bananas, and intoxicating takoyaki (octopus meatballs). The streets are chaotic, crowded and smelly, but you feel like you've stumbled into a bustling Asian market and you can find some good deals on souvenirs if you have the patience to crowd surf.

Ueno Park is also "home" to a large number of Tokyo's homeless. The community is orderly and close knit with many people living in makeshift tents. Rows of shoes are lined neatly outside of the shelters. Unfortunately the community has become as much of a tourist draw as the museums and the zoo, and people take photographs of the community without much regard to those living there.

Ueno Park is pleasant any time of year, but is most enjoyable during the sakura, cherry blossom viewing season. Just be prepared to rub elbows with the locals who set up camp underneath the trees with plenty of sake and a karaoke machine.

Where can you find street performers, shrines and a zoo all in one place? We stumbled upon Ueno Park after our trip to Asakusa. Our good friend, Sheri, had suggested that we take a trip up to Ueno, located on the north side of the Yamanote Line, in northern Tokyo. She highly recommended that we see Shinobazu Pond, the lotus pond at Ueno Park.

Sadly, our timing did not coincide with lotus season but the park still provided a respite from the bustling Tokyo streets. While Hama Rikyu Gardens oozed tranquility, Ueno Park catered to families and a wider range of interests. Tokyo opened Ueno Park in 1873 as the city’s first public park space.

As we made our way toward Shinobazu Pond, we encountered a few street performers. The most interesting one made no sound, other than a stereo at his feet. Dressed entirely in black, this street performer hid his face under a black hood. His performance seemed to entrance those around us and rewarded him with much applause. His performance reminded me of modern dance blended with mime. We did not feel that it was anything spectacular, but then again, we had just completed a whirlwind tour of Tsukiji Fish Market, Hama Rikyu Gardens, Sumidagawa River and Asakusa, which is a tough act to follow.

We arrived at Shinobazu Pond and the Temple of Benten. The temple celebrated the goddess of Benten and sits in the center of the pond on an island. Green lotus leaves surrounded the island, covering almost all of the water in the pond. We could only imagine the stunning beauty of this area during the peak blooming season. Plant after plant floated lazily in the water.

Unfortunately, the Toshogu Shrine, honoring Tokugawa Ieyasu, was closed for renovations. When open, the shrine charges a small admission fee of approximately ¥200. I would have liked to have visited the shrine as Tokugawa Ieyasu plays a critical part in Japanese history as the head of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

At the farthest point in the park, the Ueno Zoo houses the country’s pandas on loan from China. While curious about the zoo, my husband and I chose not to visit as most of the animals live in cages. We feared that the sight of animals caged in small spaces would be too depressing as we are more accustomed to enclosures such as those at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. However, the Ueno Zoo serves as a popular family destination. It opened in 1882 and now features over 464 species. At the time we visited, admission cost approximately ¥600 for adults and ¥200 for children.

Despite all of the offerings of the park, the true headliners are the floral displays. During spring, the cherry blossoms will overwhelm even the most jaded visitor. Plan your trip accordingly. Budding photographers will relish the opportunity to photograph stunning landscapes and flowers.

If you're lucky you'll find a gig in progress at the small semi-open-air concert location in Ueno park beside the Shinobazu pond. The line-up varies, on the day I was there there were a bunch of punk and rock bands. Some were terrible, others great. It's a fun, relaxing way to spend a few hours. These were small local bands, I doubt they ever have well-known acts playing here, it's probably too small a location. There are no drinks served, but you can always buy something (alcohol included) from the ubiquitous vending machines.

Apparently Ueno park is a great spot to view the cherry blossoms at the right time of year, unfortunately I was there in May and just missed the hanami festival; not a cherry blossom in sight.

The park is large and offers pleasant walks with peony gardens and a number of beautiful temples and shrines. It's a popular place for Tokyoites to walk and picnic and was very busy when I was there.

You'll find lots of stalls selling octopus balls, green-tea ice-cream and similar delicacies. You an have a cheap and delicious lunch just by buying a few things from these stalls, then sit down on the grass and enjoy it.

There's a concert area beside Shinobazu pond where for a small fee you might get to see some local pop groups play. There are also stalls around the pond selling antiques. I bought some second-hand kimonos as presents.

The park contains the Tokyo National Museum which has fantastic exhibitions of Japanese art, ceramics, textiles and generally beautiful stuff. There's also an archaeology exhibition but I didn't make it that far.

There are some other museums here too, it took me the best part of a day to see the National Museum and another to wander around the park. I didn't even make it to any of the other museums. Plan on spending some time here!

Almost everyone in Tokyo ends up at Ueno Park one time or another. Once the site of Kan‘eiji Temple, which protected the north eastern approach to Edo Castle, it was turned into a public park after most of its buildings were destroyed in battle during the Meiji Restoration and now houses six of Japan‘s best museums, its oldest zoo, a boating lake, lotus pond, and over 1,000 cherry blossom trees.

The zoo is famous for its three giant pandas and a five-storied pagoda, one of the few surviving structures from Kan‘eiji. The spacious grounds are split into two sections linked by a short monorail ride and, though cramped and dingy in a few corners, have impressive new facilities such as the Reptile House, Gorilla Forest, and a domestic petting zoo. Definitely Ueno‘s most family-friendly attraction, the zoo gets very crowded on holidays and weekends, especially around the panda enclosure.

Near the entrance to the zoo, don’t miss the approach to Toshogu Shrine, a long path lined with 50 copper lanterns, trees almost obscuring the top of the pagoda to the right, the copper, green, and deep red hall of worship straight ahead just as it was 300 years ago. Along with the tunnel of red torii gates leading down to the modest Gojo Shrine, it’s far and away my favourite place in the park.

Less positively, there’s a disappointing lack of places to sit and relax unless you pay to get into the zoo or the grounds of the National Museum. Shinobazu Pond is indicative of this problem, a few scruffy benches and some food stalls on the ma-made island next to Benzaiten Temple the only places to break your walk. The park’s not even an especially nice place to walk around: the main paths are overcrowded and the trees are strung with blue tarpaulin sheets for the hundreds of homeless people who live here. Outside of cherry blossom season or the summer ice sculpture festival, the only picnickers you're likely to see are old men with cans of beer and cigarettes. Ueno is Tokyo’s best park for culture, but it's well down the list for an afternoon in the sun.