Ryogoku

Ryogoku Review

Two things make this working-class Shitamachi neighborhood worth a special trip: this is the center of the world of sumo wrestling as well as the site of the extraordinary Edo-Tokyo Museum. Five minutes from Akihabara on the JR Sobu Line, Ryogoku is easy to get to, and if you've budgeted a leisurely stay in the city, it's well worth a morning's expedition.

The Edo-Tokyo Museum (1-4-1 Yokoami, Sumida-ku. 03/3626-9974. www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp. ¥600; additional fees for special exhibits. Tues.-Sun. 9:30-5:30, Fri. 9:30-7:30) opened in 1993, more or less coinciding with the collapse of the economic bubble that had made the project possible. Money was no object in those days; much of the large museum site is open plaza—an unthinkably lavish use of space. From the plaza the museum rises on massive pillars to the permanent exhibit areas on the fifth and sixth floors. The escalator takes you directly to the sixth floor—and back in time 300 years. You cross a replica of the Edo-period Nihombashi Bridge into a truly remarkable collection of dioramas, scale models, cutaway rooms, and even whole buildings: an intimate and convincing experience of everyday life in the capital of the Tokugawa shoguns. Equally elaborate are the fifth-floor re-creations of early modern Tokyo, the "enlightenment" of Japan's headlong embrace of the West, and the twin devastations of the Great Kanto Earthquake and World War II. If you only visit one non-art museum in Tokyo, make this it.

To get to the museum, leave Ryogoku Station by the west exit, immediately turn right, and follow the signs. The moving sidewalk and the stairs bring you to the plaza on the third level; to request an English-speaking volunteer guide, use the entrance to the left of the stairs instead, and ask at the General Information counter in front of the first-floor Special Exhibition Gallery.

Walk straight out to the main street in front of the west exit of Ryogoku station, turn right, and you come almost at once to the Kokugikan (National Sumo Arena), with its distinctive copper-green roof.

If you can't attend one of the Tokyo sumo tournaments, you may want to at least pay a short visit to the Sumo Museum (1-3-28 Yokoami, Sumida-ku. 03/3622-0366. Free. Weekdays 10-4:30), in the south wing of the arena. There are no explanations in English, but the museum's collection of sumo-related wood-block prints, paintings, and illustrated scrolls includes some outstanding examples of traditional Japanese fine art.