Tokyo National Museum

Honkan, the 1938 main gallery straight ahead of the entrance, is Japanese art from prehistory to the nineteenth century: swords, armour, Buddhist sculpture, screens, lacquer, ceramics and ukiyo-e. It is the default and it deserves to be. Two hours minimum.

The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, the Yoshio Taniguchi building to the left, is the one most people never reach and the one connoisseurs go back for. It holds around three hundred objects given to the imperial household by Horyuji temple in 1878, including a room of small seventh-century gilt-bronze Buddhas lit individually in near darkness. It is the single most beautiful room in Tokyo and it is usually almost empty.

Toyokan is Asian art beyond Japan – Chinese, Korean, Central Asian, and a strong Egyptian section. Heiseikan holds Japanese archaeology and hosts the major special exhibitions. Hyokeikan, a 1909 Meiji building, opens only for special shows. Kuroda Memorial Hall is a small free gallery of the western-style painter Kuroda Seiki.

A realistic first visit is Honkan plus Horyuji Treasures, in that order, in about three and a half hours.

The museum holds well over a hundred thousand objects and shows a small fraction at a time. Light-sensitive works – screens, scrolls, textiles, prints – are rotated on cycles measured in weeks, and National Treasures appear and disappear from the galleries accordingly.

This has two consequences. First, do not travel for a specific object without checking the current display listing, because the famous thing you came for may be in storage. Second, it makes the museum genuinely repeatable: coming back two years later is a different visit, not the same one.

Special exhibitions in Heiseikan are ticketed separately and are frequently the reason for a queue at the gate. They are often excellent and they are almost always crowded; a separate exhibition ticket usually includes the permanent collection, so check before paying twice.

The museum sits at the north end of Ueno Park, which also holds the National Museum of Nature and Science, the National Museum of Western Art in a Le Corbusier building, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, a zoo and a large pond. It is the densest concentration of museums in Japan and a rainy day here is an easy day.

The Friday and Saturday late opening to 20:00 is underused. The galleries after six are quiet, the lighting in Honkan is better than in daylight, and it turns the museum into an evening rather than a whole daytime commitment.

Ten minutes north-west on foot is Yanaka, which is the correct thing to do afterwards: low buildings, a cemetery full of cherry trees, and the old-town walk. Ueno Station itself is a major hub and is on the way to almost everywhere.