About Tōkyō National Museum (東京国立博物館, Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan) Japan almost seems chock-a-block with museums, and Tōkyō in particular is practically swimming in them, but this one is the grande dame. The venerable TNM is both Japan’s oldest and largest museum, with a collection of more than 120,000 art and archaeological objects from across the country…

About Housed in a fairly nondescript building about ten or so minutes’ walk from Kyōto Station, the new teamLab Biovortex is a highly interactive digital art museum – or, as I prefer to think of it, a funhouse masquerading as an art facility. That isn’t meant as criticism so much as an observation: whatever meaning…

About Kyōto National Museum (京都国立博物館, Kyōto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan) The Kyōto National Museum is one of my favourite museums in Japan, and also the one I find most frustrating to visit. It routinely puts on some of the most splendid exhibitions of traditional Japanese art and historical artefacts anywhere in the country, so when there is…

About Matsura Historical Museum (松浦史料博物館, Matsura Shiryō Hakubutsukan) Housed in a 19th century nobleman’s villa, the Matsura Historical Museum showcases the precious heirlooms of the Matsura family (rulers of Hirado during the Edo Period). There are lots of absolutely gorgeous pieces on display, including splendid specimens of traditional lacquerware and a pair of screens executed…

About Hirado Dutch Trading Post (平戸オランダ商館, Hirado Oranda shōkan) This building is a meticulous reconstruction of a 1639 warehouse that once stood in the Dutch Trading Post at Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture. The Japanese operations of the United East India Company were headquartered here before the Tokugawa government forced them to relocate to Dejima. The interior…