10:30 / 12:30 / 14:00
Museum admission not included
Simple English and Japanese
One day only this October
Friday, October 23, 2026 — 10:30, 12:30 and 14:00
JPY 15,000 per person · 60 minutes · up to 15 guests per session · solo travellers welcome
The design principle
Place, person, practice.
Authenticity is where they meet.
Anyone can hand you a brush. Almost nowhere can you use it in a room like this one, guided by someone who has studied the brush since the age of eight.
Place
Kujo-kan is a wooden hall in the museum garden, and it is not open to the public. Visitors walk past it. For this session the doors open, and you write inside — a setting that exists nowhere else.
Person
Yoshun Teranishi received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award at the 87th Shodan-in Exhibition, and spent ten years teaching Japanese as a second language. She is used to explaining characters to people meeting them for the first time.
Practice
You begin with simple characters such as 三 (three) and 川 (river), and with how hiragana, katakana and kanji are connected. Then you choose the characters you want to write.
Context
The point is not to reproduce the model perfectly. It is to find your own brushstroke — the warmth and personality that only handwriting carries — in a room built for Kyoto’s court nobility.
The building
Kujo-kan.
A room built for Kyoto court nobility, opened for an afternoon of brush and ink.
The room began inside the grounds of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, as part of the residence of the Kujo family. It was later rebuilt at the family’s villa in Akasaka, and in 1934 came here, to the museum garden, given by Kujo Michihide.
The Kujo were kuge — court nobility, not samurai. Theirs was one of the five families from which the emperor’s regents were chosen, and the culture they kept was one of ceremony, poetry and the turning of the seasons. Writing with a brush belonged to that world.
It is not, strictly, a teahouse but a shoin-style reception room: two rooms of ten tatami mats with a veranda on every side. Above the doors, a transom cut from a single plank of Chinese quince into openwork wisteria lozenges. On the alcove panels, a landscape with pavilions attributed to the Kano school.
- Origin
- Kujo residence, Kyoto Imperial Palace grounds
- Relocated
- Kujo villa, Akasaka → museum garden, 1934
- Structure
- Single-storey timber, hipped tile roof, 15m × 10m
- Rooms
- Two rooms of ten tatami, encircling veranda
- Alcove
- Landscape with pavilions, attributed to the Kano school
- Transom
- Openwork wisteria lozenges, single Chinese quince plank
The museum garden is open throughout the year, but its historic buildings are not open to visitors. Entry to Kujo-kan is for booked guests only.
The plan
Three steps, one finished piece.
Sixty minutes from your first stroke to a finished, stamped piece of your own — written on an uchiwa fan or a shikishi board, whichever you choose.
20–30 minutes
Learn the brush
The instructor explains how hiragana, katakana and kanji relate to one another, and the stories behind the characters. You practise basic strokes with simple characters such as 三 and 川, then try each script yourself.
20–30 minutes
Choose your characters
Pick the characters you want for your final piece and practise them from a model. Tell us your name when you book, and a model of your own name in katakana or hiragana will be ready for you on the day.
About 10 minutes
Write it, and seal it
Write your final piece on an uchiwa fan or a shikishi board, and finish it with a seal stamp.
Everything you write goes home
Your finished piece goes home with you, together with your model and the practice sheets you wrote on the day.
- Photographs in this section are from earlier sessions at the instructor’s studio in Kagurazaka, Tokyo.
- Everyone moves at a different pace. If you pick it up quickly, you may get to practise all three scripts; if you would rather take your time, nobody will hurry you.
- Seating is at low tables on tatami. If sitting on the floor is difficult, a chair can be requested on the day.
- Sumi ink is used, so please wear clothes you don’t mind getting ink on.
The instructor
Yoshun Teranishi.
Calligrapher and teacher, who runs Atelier Kakko, a calligraphy school in Kagurazaka, Shinjuku.
Yoshun Teranishi began studying calligraphy at the age of eight, under a calligrapher who is an adviser to the Shodan-in calligraphy society. Every year since, she has exhibited at the Mainichi, Shodan-in and Toko exhibitions, and at the 87th Shodan-in Exhibition she received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award. Her specialties are kanji and clerical script (reisho).
Grounded in the classics, she also creates original and design calligraphy, including logo lettering and brush typography.
Atelier Kakko has more than 100 students, from young children to adults. Its lessons go beyond copying a model: students learn the shape and meaning of words and characters, and what makes them beautiful. Yoshun Teranishi also teaches calligraphy to visitors to Japan, and leads workshops that bring Japanese culture closer — on themes such as the Choju-giga animal scrolls, mon-kiri paper-cut uchiwa fans and kakishibu persimmon dye.
- Qualifications
- Certified Calligraphy Professor, Shodan-in · Teaching licence for junior and senior high schools · Ten years as a teacher of Japanese
- Awards
- Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award, 87th Shodan-in Exhibition · Commendation Prize, Mainichi Calligraphy Exhibition · many other prizes and selections
- Education
- Tokyo Gakugei University, Faculty of Education · Master’s degree, Rikkyo University
The session is led by Yoshun Teranishi with two assistants, so help is always within reach.
Who this is for
For guests who want to meet Japanese culture through place, script and their own hand.
Whether you are in Japan for a week, you live here, or you are from here.
A cultural activity with depth
You learn why the characters look the way they do, not only how to copy them.
Small and attentive
Up to fifteen guests, with the instructor and two assistants, so nobody works alone.
Inside the museum
The session sits in the garden of a national museum, in a building visitors walk past but do not enter — a few minutes from the galleries.
Location
Finding Kujo-kan.
Kujo-kan stands in the museum garden, behind the main gallery building — a few minutes on foot from the Main Gate.
13-9 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-8712, Japan
Show the Japanese line above to a taxi driver.
- JR
- 10 minutes’ walk from Ueno Station (Park Exit) or Uguisudani Station
- Tokyo Metro
- 15 minutes’ walk from Ueno Station (Ginza or Hibiya line), or Nezu Station (Chiyoda line)
- Keisei Line
- 15 minutes’ walk from Keisei Ueno Station
- Entrance
- Visitors enter through the Main Gate only
- Enter at the Main GateThis is the only visitor entrance. If you have not bought a museum ticket, the ticket counter is inside the Main Gate Plaza, just here.
- Honkan is straight aheadThe long gallery building facing you is Honkan, the Japanese Gallery. Toyokan, the Asian Gallery, stands to your right.
- Enter the garden beside ToyokanWalk towards Toyokan and follow the path into the garden, which lies behind Honkan.
- Kujo-kanA single-storey wooden building under a tiled roof, with a veranda running around it. We will be waiting for you there.
Allow about ten minutes from the Main Gate, including the ticket check. Museum admission is JPY 1,000 for adults, JPY 500 for university students, and free for visitors under 18 and over 70 — it is not included in the session fee. Diagram not to scale.
Booking
Available sessions
- Free to cancel until the day before. A 100% fee applies for same-day cancellation or no-show.
- Solo travellers are welcome. One booking is enough — your session runs even if you are the only guest.
- Please include how your name is pronounced when you book. The instructor will prepare a model of your name in katakana or hiragana before the day.
Details
Before joining
- Venue
- Kujo-kan, in the garden of the Tokyo National Museum, Ueno, Tokyo — how to find it
- Date and times
- Friday, October 23, 2026 — 10:30–11:30, 12:30–13:30, 14:00–15:00
- Language
- Simple English and demonstration by the instructor, with English-speaking assistants. Japanese guests are supported in Japanese
- Group size
- Up to 15 guests per session. The session runs with one guest
- Who can join
- Children of elementary-school age and older, and adults. Everyone is welcome — visitors from abroad, residents of Japan and Japanese guests alike
- Children
- There is no child rate: a child who takes part pays the full fee of JPY 15,000. Someone who comes along only to watch is not charged
- What you make
- One final piece, written on an uchiwa fan or a shikishi board of your choice and finished with a seal stamp
- Your name
- If you let us know your name and how it is pronounced when booking, a model of your name in katakana or hiragana can be prepared in advance
- To take home
- Your finished piece, your model and your practice sheets
- What to wear
- Sumi ink is used, so please wear comfortable clothes you don’t mind getting ink on
- What to bring
- Nothing. Come empty-handed
- Check-in
- Please arrive at Kujo-kan 15 minutes before your session begins
- Seating
- At low tables on tatami. If sitting on the floor is difficult, a chair can be requested on the day
- Museum admission
- JPY 1,000 for adults, JPY 500 for university students, free for visitors under 18 and over 70. Not included in the session fee — please buy your ticket at the Main Gate
- Luggage
- The museum does not admit suitcases. If you are travelling with one, please leave it in a coin locker at the station
- Booking
- Please use the booking link shown for each session
- Cancellation
- Free until the day before. A 100% fee applies for same-day cancellation or no-show
- Notes
- The session is cancelled if the museum is closed. Schedule and operating details may change depending on museum conditions