Tokyo needs no introduction.
Anyone who has been will have a clear impression, whether they love it or hate it. Anyone else will have seen enough movies and news reports to have a feel for the endless stereotypes it generates.
From the Anne Hostel in the Asakushabasi district, we walked past the caged Fugu fish at the restaurant on the corner. You need a licence to fillet it as its toxins kill many each year, such is the draw of this dangerous delicacy.
A tide of commuters, tens of millions strong, moves across the city at dawn and dusk. The high-rise stretches as far as the eye can see. Neon blares from hordings ten stories high. Mono-rails cruise silently above it all.
Walking around the city, we paused for a few contemplative moments at the Meiji Jingu shrine to the Emperor's parents in Shibuyaku and the Sansoji Temple in Asakusa where the air is thick with incense and the sound of prayer wheels turning.
For a more commercial feel we posed for pictures at the Park Hyatt famed for 'Lost in Translation' and drunk coffee overlooking the Shibuya junction where a surge of humanity crosses at every change of the lights.
Aiming for the Imperial Gardens, the only part of the palace generally open to the public, we took a long walk around Tokyo commercial sector. The city has a high rise district that ends abruptly at the Imperial Gardens like an oriental Central Park. The headquarters of a hundred world beating Japanese companies that you have never heard of stand in a phalanx 50 stories high and 30 blocks wide, nose to nose with the carefully topiaried evergreens of the palace.
In a clash of heritage and progress, stale mate would have been reached were it not for a single behemoth, currently under construction, that has breached the front line and found a place forward of the neutral zone. Whether this is a sign of things to come or an aberation permitted only by a quirk in the otherwise straight edge of the palace moat, only time will tell.
Back at the hostel, Barney and Cliff, two sea plane pilots from Jeaneau, Alaska told us about life in a state capital of 30,000, where bears root in the trash and moose don't stop for the traffic lights. We made Udon with super hot ingrediants from the Seven Eleven and cooled the burn with Cliff's pink rice pudding.
The Tokyo interlude over, the Narita Rapid Express whisked us to check in for our flight to Auckland, via Sydney on a Qantas 747.
Apart from a 2 1/2 hour detour caused by a volcanic eruption in southern Japan we slept, only mildly aware that the connection time for our next flight was the same 2 1/2 hour window. Normally tight connections stress the journeyman air traveller.
Our mild amusement at the unfolding situation illustrated a dawning realisation that nothing could interupt the fun that lay ahead of us.
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| A trillion Yen of central Tokyo real estate |
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| Shibuya Junction; safer than mopeds in Saigon |
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| Mega City One; Tokyo at night. |
Tokyo needs no introduction.
Anyone who has been will have a clear impression, whether they love it or hate it. Anyone else will have seen enough movies and news reports to have a feel for the endless stereotypes it generates.
From the Anne Hostel in the Asakushabasi district, we walked past the caged Fugu fish at the restaurant on the corner. You need a licence to fillet it as its toxins kill many each year, such is the draw of this dangerous delicacy.
A tide of commuters, tens of millions strong, moves across the city at dawn and dusk. The high-rise stretches as far as the eye can see. Neon blares from hordings ten stories high. Mono-rails cruise silently above it all.
Walking around the city, we paused for a few contemplative moments at the Meiji Jingu shrine to the Emperor's parents in Shibuyaku and the Sansoji Temple in Asakusa where the air is thick with incense and the sound of prayer wheels turning.
For a more commercial feel we posed for pictures at the Park Hyatt famed for 'Lost in Translation' and drunk coffee overlooking the Shibuya junction where a surge of humanity crosses at every change of the lights.
Aiming for the Imperial Gardens, the only part of the palace generally open to the public, we took a long walk around Tokyo commercial sector. The city has a high rise district that ends abruptly at the Imperial Gardens like an oriental Central Park. The headquarters of a hundred world beating Japanese companies that you have never heard of stand in a phalanx 50 stories high and 30 blocks wide, nose to nose with the carefully topiaried evergreens of the palace.
In a clash of heritage and progress, stale mate would have been reached were it not for a single behemoth, currently under construction, that has breached the front line and found a place forward of the neutral zone. Whether this is a sign of things to come or an aberation permitted only by a quirk in the otherwise straight edge of the palace moat, only time will tell.
Back at the hostel, Barney and Cliff, two sea plane pilots from Jeaneau, Alaska told us about life in a state capital of 30,000, where bears root in the trash and moose don't stop for the traffic lights. We made Udon with super hot ingrediants from the Seven Eleven and cooled the burn with Cliff's pink rice pudding.
The Tokyo interlude over, the Narita Rapid Express whisked us to check in for our flight to Auckland, via Sydney on a Qantas 747.
Apart from a 2 1/2 hour detour caused by a volcanic eruption in southern Japan we slept, only mildly aware that the connection time for our next flight was the same 2 1/2 hour window. Normally tight connections stress the journeyman air traveller.
Our mild amusement at the unfolding situation illustrated a dawning realisation that nothing could interupt the fun that lay ahead of us.
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