On my 6th trip to Japan, I had two main aims, to walk the Kumano Kodo and to visit at least one museum or gallery a day for the rest of my trip. Visiting museums has never been top of my list in my previous trips because there was just so much else to see and do already. I have previously written about the main part of my trip on the Kumano Kodo here so this post is all about my museum experiences in Osaka and Tokyo.

In Osaka

Museum of Oriental Ceramics – 7/10

Excellent if you’re a fan of ceramics like I am, expensive entry ticket prices if you’re not. The pieces were the attraction of course, but it was also interesting to see how they’ve incorporated new presentation techniques like earthquake proof display cases, rotating daises and natural light into their galleries. I walked through it all in under two hours. They have a nice looking cafe with a lovely view of the river but be prepared to queue as it seem to be a popular spot with non-museum patrons. Nakanoshima is a quiet little island to stroll around afterwards if you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Osaka.

Osaka Museum of Housing and Living + special exhibition gallery – 8/10

I think kids would really enjoy this small little hands-on museum. I certainly did. Located on the top two floors of a public building, it wasn’t particularly well sign posted but it’s at the north end of the Tenjinbashi-suji shopping street, said to be the longest shopping street in all of Japan.

I opted to get the combined ticket which included a special exhibition about beautiful folding screens. The museum proper was split into a recreation of an Osaka street in the Edo period that cycles very cleverly between day and night and a diorama section that showcased Osaka through the different historical periods. Although many of the descriptions were in Japanese it wasn’t too difficult to follow what was going on. Many exhibits were interactive and the recreated street offered an immersive dress up experience and games for children. Again, under two hours for me but I imagine families with children might spend a bit more time here than I did.

Osaka Ukioye Museum – ?/10

This was a museum that I ended up going to but not entering. It looked very small from the outside and it felt more like a shop that decided to slap on a small gallery upstairs and call it a museum, rather than an actual museum, And since I was going to go to a more renown one in Tokyo, I decided it wasn't worth it. Was I right? Let me know!

In Tokyo

Ota Memorial Museum of Art – 10/10

A delightful little museum dedicated to Ukiyoe and related arts. The current exhibition of Cats, Kabuki Actors and Girls is such a good one. The cats are hilarious! It’s small and you’ll be able to do this in a couple of hours and then walk around Harajuku and Omotesando after. They have a nice little gift shop and an auditorium in the basement. They screen a slightly dated history of Ukiyoe documentary daily in the auditorium. Including the documentary, I spent just under two hours for this.

Nezu Museum – 7/10

The museum was Buddhist art heavy when I visited but the curation of the special exhibit about numbers and counting was very well done. Ultimately I was more impressed by the traditional garden and the museum building than the exhibits. In my opinion, the garden alone is worth the ticket price. It’s also a nice excuse to check out the fancy and relatively untorusity Aoyama district afterwards.

Omiya Bonsai Art Museum – ?/10

This museum had an unannounced closure when I got there but the two bonsai nurseries, Seiky-en and Toen-en, that allowed public access partly made up for the loss. A big shame as it took me over an hour to get to Omiya and I don’t think I’ll be as committed to getting all the way out there again in the future. Would love to hear what past visitors have to say about it.

Tokyo National Museum – 9/10

I think they did a fantastic job curating the most representative of pieces that shout "Japan" for their main exhibition. It had many important items that a tourist would expect, such as samurai weaponry and armour, as well as other national treasures like scrolls and folding screens. I did find it rather striking that their Okinawan and Ainu section was more like footnotes to the exhibition.

Apart from the main gallery, I also managed to briefly browse through the serenely beautiful Gallery of Horyuji Treasures as well as their Asian collection and was pleasantly surprised to see Chinese stone carvings that were thousands of years old. The museum also has a small traditional garden with recreated/rebuilt tea houses but I thought it wasn’t as impressive as Nezu's.

This was the only museum where I skipped the special exhibition as I simply ran out of time. To look at everything at a comfortable pace would require a whole day and I only managed to get there after lunchtime and stayed till it closed for the day.

The National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo – 7/10

I'm not a big fan of modern art but I found the pieces in this museum quite approachable. The special exhibition of Trio: Modern Art Collections from Paris, Tokyo and Osaka is beautifully put together. Also impressive were pieces by Dali, Calder, Rothko, Gormley, etc casually scattered around the galleries. I recommend their Nihon-ga selection in their permanent galleries. It's a must see if you visit.

A small inconvenience here is that the museum only had a full service fine dining restaurant with set courses and no casual cafe option at all. I was here for a little over two hours before hunger forced me to leave for Tokyo station to seek lunch.

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum – 4/10

The Mount Fuji special exhibition was beautiful but the permanent galleries were so-so. Plus it's a bit of a trek from Yebisu or Meguro stations. Maybe you have to be a photographer to really appreciate it?

Yebisu Brewery Tokyo – 2/10

Brand new gallery showing off the history of Yebisu. Displays were in Japanese and so were the guided tours. The bar served very delicious specialty beers and bar snacks, albeit at a very high mark up (Y1100-1200 for 300ml). I would skip this unless you're a big beer fan and you're already in the area visiting the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

Hope this helps! Happy to answer questions!