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Advertising Museum Tokyo
Dentsu, Japan's largest advertising agency, operates this rather extensive museum of Japanese ads in the basement of the Caretta building. The collection covers wood-block printed handbills from the Edo period, through sumptuous Art Nouveau and Art Deco Meiji and Taisho era works, to the best of today. There's not a lot of English signage, but the strong graphics of many of the ads stand in good stead. You can watch award-winning TV commercials from around the world in a video room.
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Akihabara Electric Town
What the Tsukiji Central Fish Market is to the food trade, Akihabara is to Japan's legendary electronics industry: bustling, busy and fun to watch. Bonus: you don't have to get up early in the morning to catch the action (afternoon is prime time).
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Ameya Yokochō (Ameyoko Arcade)
This unabashed shopping street is one of the few areas in which some of the rough readiness of old Shitamachi still lingers. Step into this alley paralleling the JR Yamanote Line tracks south of JR Ueno
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Ancient Orient Museum
On the 7th floor of the Bunka Kaikan Centre you'll find the quiet Ancient Orient Museum. It displays art and antiquities, sculpture and fragments, amulets and idols from Iran, Iraq, Uzbekistan and especially Syria. Exhibits change every six months; there are about 600 pieces on display at any one time.
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Aoyama Rei-en
John Manjiro, the famously shipwrecked young fisherman who became the first Japanese person to go to America, is buried here, as is professor Ueno, the master of Hachikō the Dog. It's a good alternative to the crowds at Ueno or Yoyogi-kōen during hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) season. You can stroll from either Roppongi or Aoyama.
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Art Galleries
An increasing number of galleries are moving out of Central Tokyo to an edgy space such as you might expect in New York or Los Angeles. The building faces the Sumida-gawa (Sumida River) on one side and a cement plant on the other, and downstairs are loading docks for a department store. But no matter: the gallery owners present some of the city's most cutting-edge work. Galleries are on the 5th through 7th floors.
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Asakura Chōso Museum
The primary work of sculptor Asakura Fumio (1883-1964) consisted of realistic sculptures of people and cats, but the real attractions are the Japanese house, studio and garden, designed by the artist himself. Upstairs in the Morning Sun Room and the Poised Mind Room are some excellent ink scrolls and beautiful old tansu (wooden chests).
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Asakusa Kannon Sentō
Near Sensō-ji, the water at this traditional bathhouse is a steamy 40ºC. Asakusa's historic ambience makes this a great place for a soul-soothing soak.
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Asakusa-Jinja (Asakusa Shrine)
The proximity of this Shintō shrine, behind Sensō-ji and to the right, testifies to the comfortable coexistence of Japan's two major religions. Asakusa-jinja was built in honour of the brothers who discovered the Kannon statue and is renowned as a fine example of an architectural style called gongen-zukuri . It's also the site of one of Tokyo's most important festivals, the Sanja Matsuri, a three-day extravaganza of costumed parades, about 100 lurching mikoshi (portable shrines) and stripped-to-the-waist yakuza sporting remarkable tattoos.
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Azabu-Jūban Onsen
Helpful English signage hints that this onsen (hot spring) has experience with foreigners - a great thing, as the dark, tea-coloured water is scalding hot, and there's a lovely rotemburo (outdoor bath) it would be a shame to miss out on. Downstairs there's a less expensive, more bare-bones sentō (public bath). The nondescript building is on the corner of Kurayami-zaka and Azabu-Jūban-dōri.
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Bashō Kinenkan (Bashō Museum)
Although it now takes just a matter of minutes from the central Nihombashi district, Fukagawa was considered a very remote area of Edo in 1680 when the revered haiku poet Matsuo Bashō arrived here. At this compact museum, you can see some scrolls of poetry written by Bashō and those inspired by him, as well as souvenirs of his journeys. There's no English signage, but it's a unique opportunity nonetheless to enter his world.
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Beer Museum Yebisu
Let's cut to the chase. Yes, this is the site of the original Yebisu brewery (1889; now owned by the giant brewer Sapporo). And yes, inside are giant pot-bellied beer vats, antique signage, cute beer ads and a suitably cheesy Magic Vision Theatre. But really you've come for the Tasting Room, where you can try cheap draughts of everything from weizen and ale to porters and stouts - a four-glass tasting set will only set you back around ¥400 ).
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Benten-Dō
Take a stroll down the causeway leading to the island on which Benten-dō stands. The temple is dedicated to Benzaiten, the Buddhist goddess of the arts, wisdom, the sea and the protector of children (she covers a lot of territory). More interesting than the temple itself is its location and the opportunity to see the birds and botany that thrive around the pond.
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Bijutsukan Kōgeikan
An excellent museum staging changing exhibitions of mingei crafts: ceramics, lacquerware, bamboo, textiles, dolls and more. Artists range from living national treasures to contemporary artisans. Its red-brick building is an important cultural property in its own right - it dates from 1910, when it was the headquarters of the imperial guards, and was rebuilt after destruction in WWII.
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Bridgestone Museum Of Art
Tokyo has a love affair with all things French, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that French impressionist art looms large in the civic imagination. The Bridgestone Tyre Company's collection, once kept privately by Bridgestone founder Ishibashi Shojiro, is one of the best French impressionist collections you'll find in Asia.
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Bunkamura
'Bunkamura' means 'culture village' and it was Japan's first crosscultural centre. Spin-the-globe exhibits feature the work of artists from Grandma Moses to Monet to Munakata Shikō as well as photographic displays by the likes of Man Ray. It's also a busy theatre, art house cinema and concert hall. It's about seven minutes' walk from Shibuya Station (turn right at the Shibuya 109 building).
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Chingodō-Ji
This odd, peaceful little shrine on the banks of Dembō-in pays tribute to tanuki (raccoon dogs who figure in Japanese myth as mystical shape-shifters and merry pranksters). Tanuki are normally depicted with enormous testicles on which they can fly. Since (needless to say) they make for great subject matter, they frequently pop up in Japanese wood-cuts like Utagawa Kuniyoshi's The Seven Wonders of the Clowning Raccoon, in which the tanuki is shown cheerily dancing his way round a geisha house.
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Complex
If you're only here for a few days and are seeking a peek into the Tokyo art scene, stop here. Several of the best commercial galleries in town inhabit the five-storey, aptly named Complex. Spaces are a mix of styles and intentions, a conflation of more established exhibitors such as Ota Fine Arts, known for showing big names like Kusama Yayoi as well as newer galleries.
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Criminology Museum Of Meiji University
Covering centuries of crime and punishment in Japan, this museum will fascinate both the criminally minded and the morbidly curious. While there isn't much English signage, the wood-block prints and torture devices are self-explanatory. From the stations, walk downhill on Meidai-dōri. The Daigaku Kaikan building will be on your right, on the corner just before the huge Meiji University building.
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Daien-Ji (Daien Temple)
Established sometime around 1615, this small, photogenic temple hemmed in by trees commemorates stillborn and miscarried children as well as aborted fetuses. In the rear of the temple precinct is a separate tribute to the 14,700 people who died in the fire of 1772, which in addition to flattening most of the wooden houses in surrounding Meguro, burned the original temple structure to the ground.
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Dembō-In
To the left of the temple precinct lies Dembō-in, a garden that adjoins the residence of the chief priest of Sensō-ji. The grounds are thought to have been designed sometime in the late 18th century to resemble those of Katsura-rikyu, the sprawling imperial villa in Kyoto.
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Design Festa
One of the strangest buildings in Aoyama, the headquarters of Design Festa looks like an industrial, spider-webbed diorama, though the space is actually home to a slew of galleries. Design Festa is also responsible for the enormous art and design festival that takes place biannually at the Tokyo Big Sight.
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Edo Shitamachi Dentō Kōgeikan (Traditional Crafts Museum)
Gallery Takumi, as this hall is also known, is a great place to view dozens of handmade crafts that still flourish in the heart of Shitamachi. The gallery on the 2nd floor is crammed with a rotating selection of works by neighbourhood artists: fans, lanterns, knives, brushes, gold leaf, precision wood-working and glass just for starters. Craft demonstrations take place most Saturdays and Sundays around noon.
Read more about Edo Shitamachi Dentō Kōgeikan (Traditional Crafts Museum)
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Edo-Tokyo Museum
This massive, futuristic building is by far the best city-history museum we've ever encountered. The permanent collection on the upper floors starts with a reconstruction of one-half of the bridge at Nihombashi, on either side of which are thorough histories of Edo and Tokyo respectively, mostly with excellent English signage.
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Ferris Wheel
Don't miss one of the world's tallest Ferris wheels, which is as high as the second viewing platform of the Eiffel Tower (the one in Paris, not Tokyo Tower!).
