Picks for Tokyo kids
[Open 9am-5pm. Closed Mondays.]
This is an outstanding natural history museum, with beautiful, curiosity-inspiring exhibits exploring the animal and plant kingdoms and the prehistoric world. It's also a real bargain - general admission to the vast permanent exhibition areas is...
[Open 10am-4pm (enter by 3:30pm). Closed Thursdays.]
Especially popular with younger children but suitable for all ages, the museum exhibits thousands of toys from around the world, with plenty of hands-on activity for enthusiastic visitors. The musuem occupies two floors of a former elementary...
[2 sessions per day: 10am-3pm and 4-9pm; open every day.]
In this rather unusual amusement park, children ages 3-15 can "work" at more than eighty grown-up jobs - pilot, firefighter, chef - and earn Kidzania currency while they do so. Some of the activities are geared toward older or younger kids, and...
[Open 10am-6pm. Closed Tuesdays.]
When Hayao Miyazaki's spellbinding Spirited Away won the Oscar for best animated feature in 2003, it only confirmed to the world what Japan has known for decades: that the work of Miyazaki and his fellow artists at Studio Ghibli ranks alongside that...
[Open 10am-8pm (enter by 6pm; weekends one hour later) daily.]
The Legoland Discovery Center is a mini-theme park inside the Tokyo Decks shopping complex, offering fun activities and charming attractions for visitors of all ages. There are a couple of entertaining rides, a 3D adventure movie, and hands-on...
Amusement parks
[Open 11am-9pm. Closed Thursdays.]
The giant ferris wheel, 112 meters in height with a capacity of 480 riders, is the main attraction here and a prominent part of the Yokohama skyline. There's also a roller coaster and a water-rafting ride.
Sanrio Puroland - Amusement park: Tama-shi
[Open 10am-6pm (Fri -8pm). Closed some Wednesdays and Thursdays.]
This indoor theme park is devoted to Hello Kitty and a multitude of other beloved Sanrio characters, including Bad Badtz-Maru, Little Twin Stars, Cinnamoroll, Pompompurin, Pochacco and of course Dear Daniel. There are parades, musical shows, a...
[Open 9am-10pm daily.]
Tokyo Disney Resort is the home to two theme parks - Disneyland (similar to other Disneylands around the world) and the only-in-Tokyo ocean-themed DisneySea. There's also a restaurant and shopping complex called Ikspiari, a Cirque du Soleil...
[Open 11am-7pm daily.]
The amusement park rides and attractions of Tokyo Dome City are spread out over five areas - LaQua, Tower Land, Splash Garden, Parchute Land and Geopolis - all covered by a one-day pass or separate pay-as-you-go admission. Attractions include the...
Science, tech, transportation
[Open 1-5pm. Closed weekdays.]
Popular with insect fans of all ages (but mostly children), this specialized museum is devoted to the life of French entomologist Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915), who was famous in Japan as the author of the beautifully written Fabre's Book of Insects....
[Open 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays.]
Earthquakes. Landslides. Typhoons. Faulty wiring. Japan has its share of danger. But fear not: the fire department is here to help. To learn exactly how they help, visit Tokyo's Fire Museum, where the history of Fire and Rescue in Japan - from...
[Open 11am-5pm (enter by 4:30pm). Closed Tuesdays.]
Two gigantic room-size layouts are the main draw at this impressive model-railway attraction. The larger diorama is European in character, with urban streets, town squares and outdoor restaurants, as well as a couple of mountain resorts connected...
[Open 9:30am-5:30pm (last entry 5pm). Closed Wednesdays.]
This inexpensive mini-theme park is an entertaining destination for young train fans who still have leftover energy after a visit to Tama Zoo, located just across the road. It's a very hands-on attraction, with several different train simulators...
[Open 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays.]
Recently refurbished, the Metro Museum focuses on the Tokyo subway system, with several hands-on driving simulators, a big model train layout (with shows four times a day), and exhibits of subway cars through the ages, tunneling equipment and...
[Open 9:30am-5pm. Closed Mondays.]
Aimed primarily at school-age children, this specialized museum focuses on the history and operations of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, exploring the topics of crime-scene investigation and disaster response in particular. There are a...
[Open noon-8:30pm. Closed 3rd Wed.]
The highlight of this model-railroad shop is a giant Tokyo-inspired track layout that takes up most of the second floor. Customers can rent one of several tracks by the hour, and either rent a model train here or bring their own.
[Open 10am-6pm (enter by 5:30pm). Closed Tuesdays.]
Train enthusiasts shouldn't miss this impressive, expensively produced railway-history museum located about thirty minutes north of Shinjuku in Saitama Prefecture. The showpiece here is a collection of thirty-five real train cars and full-size...
[Open 10am-4:30pm (enter by 4pm). Closed Mondays.]
A three-minute "Steam Locomotive Show," with spinning wheels and loud whistling, is held four times a day and is one of the main attractions at this local train museum. Another draw is the 13-minute "Panorama Show," held five times a day on a large...
[Open 10am-5:30pm (Sat, Sun -6pm). Closed Mondays.]
Aimed primarily at school-aged children, this science and technology museum covers a broad range of topics, including image-recognition technology, paper recycling, geothermal generation, smart buildings, and nanotechnology. Many of the exhibits...
[Open 10am-4:30pm (last entry 4pm). Closed Thursdays.]
Tokyu Railway's transportation museum offers plenty of hands-on activities for children and train enthusiasts, with numerous driving simulators and three different room-size model-train layouts. There are lots of features geared towards younger...
Toys and amusements
[Open noon-6pm daily.]
A shop devoted to the bean-jam-pastry hero and immensely popular children's cartoon character Anpanman, with thousands of different character items on sale.
[Open 10am-9pm daily.]
Fifty years after his manga debut, the time-traveling robotic cat now has his first official shop, fashioned vaguely after a 20th-century European department store. As you'd expect, it's jam-packed with Doraemon character goods, many of them...
Jingu Gaien Nikoniko Park - Park/garden: Shinanomachi
[Open 10am-5pm daily.]
This popular children's park inside the Meiji Jingu Gaien grounds features rather elaborate slides, simulated waterfalls and log cabins.
[Open 10am-9pm daily.]
This massive outlet mall reopened in Spring 2020 after expansion and remodeling, and it now houses more than 150 outlet shops and restaurants. Sportswear and fashion brands like Armani, Ralph Lauren, Timberland, Eddie Bauer, Puma, New Balance, Gap...
[Open 9:30am-6pm (weekends -7pm) daily.]
In the early twentieth century Japan exported huge numbers of tin-plate toys to countries around the world, and this charming little musuem traces that history, displaying some 3,000 antique toys made between the 1890s and the 1960s. Shelf after...
[Open 11am-5pm. Closed Sundays.]
A visit to Nihonbashi's Taimeiken Kite Museum feels a bit like stepping into the attic of an eccentric old man. The room is a tangled heap of color and string, requiring you to duck under and step around the hundreds of kites that couldn't fit...
[Open 10am-5pm (last entry 4pm) daily.]
Aimed squarely at the six-and-under crowd, this popular mini-museum and shopping zone is devoted to the cartoon-pastry hero and his many plush and collectible friends. The second and third floors of the building house the actual museum, which...
More activities
[Open 10am-6pm (enter by 5pm). Closed Tuesdays.]
If you love instant ramen and want to learn much, much more about the ubiquitous snack and its inventor, Momofuku Ando, you've come to the right place. Walk around inside a replica of the original shed where Ando first created instant ramen back in...
[Open 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays, Tuesdays.]
By far the noisiest museum we've been to in Tokyo, Asakusa's Drum Museum is also one of the most interactive. Hundreds of percussion instruments of all shapes and sizes are on display here, many of them waiting to be banged on by visitors - just...
[Open 10am-4:30pm (Sat, Sun from 9:30). Closed Mondays.]
Small animals like red pandas, prairie dogs, squirrels, wallabies, Humboldt penguins and tropical birds make up most of the residents of this compact city-run zoo, with around thirty animal species in all. Although admission is free, the somewhat...
[Open 10-11:30am, 1:30-3pm. Closed Mondays.]
Predating the era of cat and rabbit cafes by many years, petting zoos offer a friendly, interactive animal experience for young kids (and their parents) without the cover charge or the expensive cafe au lait. The one here lets you play with...
[Open 10am-5pm (enter by 4:30pm). Closed Mondays.]
Young children who are fascinated by package-delivery services are perhaps the main audience for this rather specialized corporate facility, although professional museum designers and connoisseurs of quirky museums may also find it of interest. ...
[Open 11am-10pm (last admission) daily.]
A miniature historical theme park, Ramen Town, located on the bottom two levels of the Ramen Museum, is a recreation of a bustling urban neighorhood in the year 1958 (which happens to be the year instant ramen was invented). Scattered among the...
[Open 9:30am-8pm (last entry 7:30pm) daily.]
Small Worlds Tokyo is an essential destination for anyone who loves elaborate dioramas, massive European-style model-train layouts, airports, spaceports, or the Sailor Moon or Evangelion anime franchises. Open since June 2020, it's advertised as...
One of central Tokyo's oldest shopping malls, Alpa anchors the Sunshine City complex, which also contains the Sky Circus sixtieth-floor observation deck, the World Import Mart (where Sunshine Aquarium and Planetarium Manten are located), the tiny...