Tokyo's Unexpected Museums
Tokyo has over 100 museums. Most visitors see two or three. These are the ones that make the list of things people tell others about when they get home — not because they're famous, but because they're genuinely surprising.
Art & Cultural Museums
The Sumida Hokusai Museum holds the world's most comprehensive collection of Hokusai's work — 38,000 pieces — in a building designed by Kazuyo Sejima with mirrored aluminium panels that reflect the surrounding neighbourhood. The Sumo Museum at Ryogoku Kokugikan is free, rarely visited by foreigners, and contains four centuries of sumo history.
Genuinely Unexpected
The Meguro Parasitological Museum is exactly what it sounds like — 300+ preserved specimens including an 8.8-metre tapeworm — and it's one of the most-remembered Tokyo visits for people who go. The Metropolitan Outer Discharge Channel in Kasukabe is a vast underground temple of concrete pillars built to prevent Tokyo from flooding.
