The building housing this impressive museum is said to resemble a rice granary when viewed from afar, but to me it looks like a modern torii, the entrance gate to a shrine. This is the metropolitan government's ambitious attempt to present the history, art, disasters, science, culture, and architecture of Tokyo from its humble beginnings in 1590 -- when the first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, made Edo (old Tokyo) the seat of his domain -- to 1964, when Tokyo hosted the Olympics. All in all, the museum's great visual displays create a vivid portrayal of Tokyo through the centuries. I wouldn't miss it. Plan on spending 2 hours here. After purchasing your ticket and taking a series of escalators to the sixth floor, you'll enter the museum by walking over a replica of Nihombashi Bridge, the starting point for all roads leading out of old Edo. Exhibits covering the Edo Period portray the lives of the shoguns, merchants, craftsmen, and townspeople. The explanations are mostly in Japanese only, but there's plenty to look at, including a replica of an old Kabuki theater, a model of a daimyo's (feudal lord's) mansion, portable floats used during festivals, maps and photographs of old Edo, and -- perhaps most interesting -- a row-house tenement where Edo commoners lived in cramped quarters measuring only 10 sq. m (108 sq. ft.). Other displays cover the Meiji Restoration, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and the bombing raids of World War II (Japan's own role as aggressor is disappointingly glossed over), with plenty of old-style conveyances -- from a palanquin to a rickshaw -- for kids to climb in and have parents take their picture. If you wish, take advantage of a free museum tour offered by volunteers daily 10am to 3pm (last tour). Most tours last 1 to 2 hours, depending on the level of visitor interest, and are insightful for their explanations of the Japanese-only displays. However, tours are necessarily rushed and focus on particular displays; you may wish to tour the museum afterward on your own.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Tokyo, 10th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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