Stuff: Seduced By Extraordinary Tokyo

Above, Ginza's Wako Dept. Store with the Mitsukoshi Dept. Store in the background. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It is interesting (at least to me) to read of other people's impressions of Japan, and of Tokyo in particular. Such is the case with a new article I came across.

Stuff, New Zealand's news and information website, has posted an article on one person's impressions of her first visit to Tokyo. It is an enjoyable read. She traveled to Japan courtesy of Cathay Pacific and Peninsula Hotels (gee, I'd like to get a junket like that!).

Megan Nicol Reed wrote (in part):

Twenty years ago Tokyo was the epicentre of the future. Otherworldly and alien, you couldn't have dreamed it if you'd tried. A city from a film. A place of bullet trains and robot waitresses. 

Last month I visited for the first time. Was it futuristic, asked a friend on my return. His question gave me pause. It's the future how we once imagined it, I said. Every square inch is built on and everything is tall and grey. People move seamlessly in great throngs from one anonymous destination to another. But, no, it's not futuristic. I guess the rest of the world just caught up. 

And yet Tokyo is undeniably extraordinary. The orderliness is seductive. It is the cleanest metropolis I have ever visited. Even the homeless maintain a level of hygiene, a sense of rigour with their possessions. The standard of service, the politeness, is incomparable. When all is constant - the noise, the movement - and you step into a shop where the assistants momentarily pause to draw their hands together into the prayer position and bow, it is wonderfully restorative, like a power meditation. 

 To read more, go here.