The Best of Tokyo - Tokyo - page 1

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The Best of Tokyo

Describing Tokyo to someone who has never been there is a formi-
dable task. After all, how do you describe a city that—as one of my friends visiting Tokyo
for the first time put it—seems like part of another planet?
To be sure, Tokyo is very different from Western capitals, but what really sets it apart
is its people. Approximately 12.5 million people reside within Tokyo's 2,100 sq. km (811
sq. miles), and almost one-fourth of Japan's total population lives within commuting
distance of the city. This translates into a crush of humanity that packs the subways,
crowds the sidewalks, and fills the department stores beyond belief. In some parts of the
city, the streets are as crowded at 3am as they are at 3pm. With its high-energy, visual
overload, Tokyo makes even New York seem like a sleepy, laid-back town.
And yet, despite its limited space for harmonious living and some of the crime inher-
ent in every major city, Tokyo remains one of the safest cities in the world. No matter
how lost I may become, I know that people will go out of their way to help me. Hard-
working, honest, and helpful to strangers, the Japanese are their country's greatest asset.
With Tokyo so densely packed, it comes as no shock to learn that land here is more
valuable than gold. Buildings are built practically on top of each other, shaped like pieces
in a jigsaw puzzle to fit the existing plots of real estate. More than perhaps any other city
in the world, Japan's capital is a concrete jungle, stretching on and on as far as the eye
can see, with a few parks but not many trees to break the monotony. Fires, earthquakes,
wars, the zeal for modernization, and the price of land have taken their tolls on the city,
eradicating almost all evidence of previous centuries. It's as though Tokyo was born only
this morning, with all the messy aftermath of a city conceived without plan and inter-
ested only in the future.
Thus, first-time visitors to Tokyo are almost invariably disappointed. They come
expecting an exotic Asian city but instead find a megalopolis, Westernized to the point
of drabness. Used to the grand edifices and monuments of Western cities, visitors look
in vain for Tokyo's own monuments to its past—ancient temples, exquisite gardens,
Imperial palaces, or whatever else they've imagined. Instead they find what may be, quite
arguably, one of the ugliest cities in the world.
So, while Tokyo is one of my favorite cities, my appreciation came only with time.
When I first moved here, I was tormented by the unsettling feeling that I was somehow
missing out on the “real” Tokyo. Even though I was living and working here, Tokyo
seemed beyond my grasp: elusive, vague, and undefined. I felt that the meaning of the
city was out there, if only I knew where to look.
With time, I learned that I needn't look farther than my own front window. Tokyo has
no center, but rather is made up of a series of small towns and neighborhoods clustered
together, each with its own history, flavor, and atmosphere. There are narrow residential
streets, ma-and-pa shops, fruit stands, and stores. There's the neighborhood tofu factory,
the lunchbox stand, the grocery shop, and the tiny police station, where the cops know
the residents by name and patrol the area by bicycle. There are carefully pruned bonsai
trees gracing sidewalks, and wooden homes on impossibly narrow streets. Walk in the old
downtown neighborhoods of Asakusa or Yanaka and you're worlds apart from the trendy