Comment by jacobgkau

Personally (and ironically), I wouldn't usually think of museums if I'm looking for something non-touristy. Walking through a museum, reading and looking at things that've been laid out in a specific order for me to consume, just feels like reading a website. Unless it's a unique exhibit, there's little interactivity, and while things can certainly be learned, I often wonder if I couldn't have learned them just as well from a book.

That's not to say I'll never go to a museum; I stumbled into a small science and technology museum near the imperial palace gardens, for example. But the bigger a museum is and the more lists it's on, the more I'd assume it's touristy. The Tokyo National Museum being "a standard destination for foreign visitors" is exactly why I'd shy away from it. (Why the general public would follow that trend for museums but not for other tourist destinations, I don't know.)