Ueno Park: sightseeing spots and interesting places. Tomb site of Shogi-tai Soldiers, bronze statue of Komatsu no miya Akihito, the Monster Lantern, the fountain and street food. See also: hanami in Ueno Park, Ueno Park shrines.
The tablet next to the tomb site of Shogi-tai Soldiers:
Shogi-tai was an army of the Edo shogunate, which was organized in 1868 to fight against the Emperor at the end of the The Edo era. They fought around here on fifteenth of May in the same year. In those days Ueno-no-yama (Ueno hill) was in the precincts of Kan-eiji temple (Tokugawa shogunate's family temple), where there were many temples and pagodas. But the battle was so intense that almost all of them were destroyed. The Shogi-tai was defeated by the evening of the day. The fight is called Ueno war or fight of Shogi-tai. These two tombstones were erected for the Shogi-tai soldiers killed here. The small tomb stone in the front was erected by a priest of Kan-eiji temple in 1869 and the large stone in the back by a survivor, a soldier called Ogawa Okisato and several of his comrades. These tombstones were registered as important cultural assets in 1990 in the Book of Cultural Assets of Taito City.
The tablet next to the bronze statue of Komatsu no miya Akihito:
Akihito was the eighth prince of Fushimi no miya Kunie. He joined the Toba/Fushimi war in January, 1868 as the commander-in-chief and also took part in the Boshin war. In 1877 he established an organization called "Hakuai-sha" to help the wounded of the Seinan war and headed the association. When it was renamed "Japan Red Cross Society," he assumed office as its president and contributed to the development of the society. He passed away at the age of 58 on the eighteenth January, 1903. This bronze statue was erected in February of 1912. The sculptor was Okuma Ujihiro, a Bunten art exhibition judge. The reason why the statue was erected here is presumed to be that Rinnoji no miya, Akihito's elder brother was the last Monseki of Kanei-ji temple.
The tablet next to huge stone lantern (Monster Lantern):
This huge garden lantern made of stone was offered as a gift from Sakuma Daizennosuke Katsuyuki to the Toshogu shrine in 1631. It is said to be one of the three great stone lanterns in Japan, together with those in Nanzen-ji temple of Kyoto and in Atsuta Jingu shrine. The dimensions of the lantern are impressive, its height being 6 meters and the perimeter of the capping stone 3.6 meters. Because of its great size, people commonly call it "Monster Lantern".

