Edo-Tokyo Museum

Travel back in time 400 years to a time when Japan was controlled by shoguns with an iron grip. Through accurate architectural models and scale reconstructions of Tokyo's old neighborhoods, the Edo-Tokyo Museum recreates this formative era. The subtle image is completed with original woodblock prints and maps. The museum examines not just the broader political forces at work, but also the daily lives of regular people. Visitors travel across a recreation of the Nihonbashi Bridge to reach the permanent display area before peeking inside reconstructions of tenement dwellings and other long-gone sights.

You'll learn about everything from the Edo period's thriving publishing business to the growth of arts like kabuki theater and ukiyo-e, or woodblock printing, as you go through the exhibitions. The museum guides visitors through Tokyo's quick development from a shielded feudal culture to a globally oriented 21st-century city after extensively examining the past.

Location: 1-4-1 Yokoami, Sumida 130-0015 Tokyo Prefecture

Website: edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/en