Kan'ei-ji

Almost everything you see in Ueno Park was once this temple. The monk Tenkai founded Kan'ei-ji in 1625 and named its mountain Toeizan, the 'Hiei of the east', after the Tendai headquarters above Kyoto. Its grand Konponchudo, built in 1698, stood where the park's big fountain now sprays. In 1868 the Shogitai, last loyalists of the shogunate, made their stand here, and the hall burned in a single day of fighting. Most of the grounds became the park. The temple rebuilt on a former subtemple site at the northern edge, and the Konponchudo there now is the old Motochido of Kitain in Kawagoe, carried to Tokyo and reassembled in 1879. Its hidden main image, a Yakushi said to have been carved by Saicho, is an Important Cultural Property. Six shoguns lie in the temple's mausolea, among them Tsunayoshi and Yoshimune; most of the mausoleum buildings burned in the Second World War. It is a quiet place, behind the Tokyo National Museum, and easy to miss. Shops are few in this residential corner, so eat in Ueno or Yanaka. The gate closes at 17:00.