Tokyo, Japan - Land Of The Rising Sun!

---

Tokyo looks like a vast metropolis with no discernable 'city centre’ and is extreme sensory overload! In excess of 2,000 sq. km’s, it’s home to over 13 million people (Tokyoites) in the city proper, and 35 million in the greater metropolitan area. Those seeking a sophisticated get-away with a touch of oriental culture (that’s us!), will not be disappointed here.

It took some planning to decide where we were going to stay in a city of this size, and after some investigation we decided to stay in one of the main centers of Tokyo - Shinjuku. A sprawling commercial, and entertainment center, which was open for business 24 / 7. It’s a modern Japanese phenomenon, with shopping arcades, flashing neon signs, and over two million people passing through the Shinjuku train station everyday. The hotel was right beside the subway system, so we had it pretty handy to get around the city. The hotel itself was quite nice; rooms were small by western standards, but pleasant none the less. The weather was cold - 10’ perhaps - that’s cold after coming from 30’ and above for the past 6 months!! We had to buy clothes (jeans, shirts, socks, gloves…), as our shorts and t-shirts just weren’t going to cut it here!

As a modern city, Tokyo being the capital of Japan, could potentially be described as nearly too good to be true. My first impressions were of a stylishly dressed and extremely orderly society. Even the homeless look neat and tidy in this city!! In general people dress in the latest clothes, superb restaurants serve up exquisite food of all varieties, the public rail transport system is punctual and one of the most efficient in the world, and shops and vending machines provide necessities and luxuries twenty four hours a day! All this is achieved in a city amid the confusion of busy traffic, flickering neon signs, and tightly packed subways and sidewalks, where you wouldn’t want to suffer from Agoraphobia (fear of crowded / open spaces). Quite amazingly through, Tokyo remains remarkably one of the world's safest cities with a very low crime rate. The only downside is that Tokyo seems all too often to get the blue ribbon for being one of the worlds’ most expensive cities too…!!

The city seems to be a maze of buildings that all jostle for space in perhaps an unplanned jungle of grey concrete. Tokyo fills a huge area that seems to go on forever and ever. The more we explored it, the more it became obvious that there is no specific city centre, but rather a succession of districts grouped together, and it would probably take forever to exhaust the shopping possibilities in this mega-city!!

The history bit…
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Japan became a regional power that was able to defeat the forces of both China and Russia. It also occupied Korea and Taiwan, and in 1937 it launched a full-scale invasion of China. Japan attacked U.S. forces in 1941 - triggering America's entry into World War II - and soon occupied much of East and South-East Asia. After its humbling defeat in World War II, Japan amazingly recovered to become a major world economic power, a staunch ally of the U.S., and rose up to be one of the leading industrialised nations on earth. It became synonymous throughout the world with superior quality, something that other countries simply could not compete with.

However things were not all well beneath the surface. No country in modern history has moved so swiftly from worldwide adulation, to dismissal or even contempt, as did Japan in the years following 1990. The following 15 years have witnessed crashing stock and property markets, mountains of debt, scores of corruption scandals, vast government deficits, and stagnant economic growth. Japan mutated from a giver of lessons, to a recipient of lectures.

The main cause of the bust (which became known as “the lost decade”) was the seemingly endless stream of available cash at very low interest rates. Many of the banks that were lending the money, were in fact part of the same ‘Keiretsu’ (group structure) that they were lending to. Companies diversified and expanded recklessly, while banks paid no attention to risk. The availability of cheap credit fuelled a consumer boom, which in turn increased corporate profits and the vicious cycle continued. Calls for financial regulation to increase competition fell on deaf ears, while interest groups often blocked change by bribing corrupt politicians. This culminated in a stock market crash, leading to massive losses for both individuals and corporations. Doesn’t all this sound very familiar… to the current situation that we Irish find ourselves in? The governments reaction was to increase public spending massively, and to reduce bank rates to almost zero percent in an attempt to stimulate growth. But the Japanese consumer did not respond, instead they went on a buyers strike; the end result was the nation mutated from a population of spenders to savers.

* * *

Tokyo must be one of the cleanest cities we have ever seen. It’s unbelievable!! Everyday, tens of millions of people converge on the city by train, bus and car. When they leave, they literally take everything with them. There only seems to be a handful of rubbish bins in the entire city; most of the ones we found were empty! The streets are spotless and there was no rubbish anywhere…!

At other times though with the crush of people, it can feel as if the entire society has no peripheral vision… waves of salary-men, silent & robotic, in identical black suits… and hoards of office women, in generic work-style skirts and blouses… all go about their business in a near automated fashion. When you step outside your door in Tokyo - everything works; everything is on time and runs like clockwork - and everything is somewhat predictable! Oddly - a complete contrast to India - where literally anything could happen when you step foot outside your front door….!

* * *

Every wondered what Christmas is like in Japan? You don’t have to any longer! Less than 1%!o(MISSING)f Japanese are Christian, most are Shinto (a Japanese form of Buddhism). So December 25th is not a national holiday, though the Japanese seemed to have taken the tradition from abroad, and transformed it into something that is uniquely Japanese.

Christmas is mostly a commercial event in Japan. The big corporations do the main decorating. They light their buildings and they put up Christmas trees. Many western customs related to Christmas have been adopted by the Japanese. Christmas trees are placed in homes and Christmas parties are held around Christmas Day. Japanese also celebrate Christmas Eve by eating Christmas cakes. Christmas Eve has also become a Valentine’s night for couples to go out and spend a romantic time together.

As Christmas Day was a working day here - we decided to celebrate it in the Hard Rock Café (as the Irish Bar where we had originally planned on getting our turkey appeared grubby, and was well over priced for the place!). The food wasn’t bad in the Hard Rock, but there was definitely no turkey, and no trimmings, or Christmas crackers for that fact! Afterwards we hit a different Irish Bar for a drink, and then later that evening back in our hotel we had another nice meal and more cocktails. To salvage some of the Christmas spirit, we picked up a funny Christmas movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger “Jingle all the way”, and then made phone calls home.

* * *

• Locally in Shinjuku (where we were staying) we took in the surrounding areas - restaurants, sushi bars and a trip to the futuristic-looking Tokyo Government Building, where they offer a free observation deck on the 46th floor of the North Observatory Tower. There are fantastic views of the city sprawl, along with a great view of Mount Fuji.

• The famous early morning tuna markets were closed to tourists for Christmas - so that saved us getting up at 5am! Instead we visited The Imperial Palace at the heart of this buzzing metropolis; where the emperor lives - and we visited him on his birthday no less - Dec 23rd! The palace was very busy for this occasion, and we even got to sign a visitor’s book wishing him well!

• Later that day we visited the Tokyo Tower, a major landmark in the city. The tower is modeled in the vein of the Eiffel Tower in France, and looks identical except it’s a few meters taller! In true Japanese style, it is more colourful (it’s red) and serves a technological purpose - functioning as a television and radio antenna.

• We visited the Zojo-ji Temple nearby to Tokyo Tower, which is an important Buddhist temple in the city.

• We also went to Shibuya - a massive focal point for that crush of humanity to converge. The Shibuya crossroads is a mesmerizing confluence of a never ending stream of people, which you can watch (seated in comfort) from upstairs in Starbucks!! Reputed to be the busiest street crossing in the world - see video.

• We headed another day to Harajuku which is the teenage fashion capital of Tokyo. It is also the area of the city that attracts the teenagers that dress up as their favorite characters from Manga comics. “Cosplay” comes from the words ‘costume’ + ‘play’. Tokyo teens wear cosplay costumes and accessories to become characters from Japanese Manga. This was an unbelievably crowded area in Tokyo and we had to fight for space on the streets.

One of the luxuries of coming to Tokyo would be the heated toilet seats! If you are clear on this you’ll be well prepared for Japan, so pay attention!! Forget all you know about toilet seats. Toilet seats here will make you never want to leave! You can find these seats in hotels and top restaurants. They're heated to your preferred temperature - legend!! On top of that, there’s a switch on the wall that can produce "white noise" to mask embarrassing noises while you’re doing your business! Leave it to the Japanese!

Lots of other interesting things in Tokyo - check out Capsule Hotels, Love Hotels & the intriguing Cat Café’s. Tokyo is without question home to the weird, wonderful, and just plain wacky!

* * *

Tokyo - what a cool city, in a country of ancient customs and traditions, futuristic gismos and ideas. New and old seem to compliment each other here. Yet again we have been blessed to have had another opportunity to see and feel a different culture, providing us with a deeper understanding of the world and its people, and giving us a perspective that we will take with us for the rest of our lives.

Next stop - a 10 hour flight to Sydney, Australia to welcome in the New Year!

---

Photos

Concrete jungle
Observation deck on the 46th floor

Tokyo Tower
The "Eiffel Tower" of Asia

Slainte!
From The Dubliners' Irish Pub, Shinjuku.