Ueno is where Tokyo keeps its museums, and the National Museum of Western Art sits at the park's southern edge, a few minutes on foot from the station. The building is the point. Le Corbusier drew it in the late 1950s to house a collection of European art that Japan had won back from France after the war, and it later joined the UNESCO list of his works spread across several countries. It is a raised concrete box on pillars with a ramp-like logic inside, meant to grow outward as the collection did. In the forecourt Rodin's Gate of Hell and The Thinker sit in the open air, and on a grey morning the bronze looks wonderfully out of place against the Tokyo sky.
Nobody comes to Tokyo by motorcycle for the corners, so treat this as the calm end of a ride rather than the thrilling middle. The city is a grid of elevated expressways, narrow side streets, bicycles, delivery scooters and traffic lights that cycle slowly. Expressways are tolled and most riders sort out an electronic toll card before arriving. Speeds are low and patient driving is the norm, which makes the whole thing less frightening than the map suggests. The real difficulty is parking. Ueno has paid motorcycle bays, but they fill early, so aim for a weekday morning if you can.
Wander before you ride out. Shinobazu Pond next door is covered in lotus leaves in high summer and crowded with cormorants and ducks in winter, and the old Ueno Park trees give some of the only deep shade in this part of the city. Cherry blossom season turns the park into a slow river of people under pink canopy, lovely and impossible to ride near. The zoo is here too, the oldest in Japan, and the Tokyo National Museum is just up the path if the art has not worn you out.
For fuel and food you are in a city of more than eight million, so this is not a problem. Petrol stations exist but are thinner in the dense centre than in the suburbs, so top up on the ring road before you head in. Around the station there are noodle counters and tiny cafes that are open from early morning, and Ameyoko market, with its shouting fishmongers, is a short walk if you want lunch with some noise. Leave before the evening rush; the expressway out is a lot nicer in daylight.