Going to Japan was like a peek into the future, a simple sharp look on the future, or one of the possible futures of the world or maybe more exactly on the future of the cities. Luis Plaja and i have been into kyoto and Tokyo, but i would like rather comment about Tokyo city wich impressed me most and can impress, i think, anybody.
In the way from the Narita airport to the city in the skyliner train, you can see that the country and the city uses every precious piece of land, as the city can not grow vertically it does horizontally to all over the horizon. The grey weather we had, helps a lot in the atmosphere. The Kyoto neighborhoods are not particularly nice or bad, they are all self similar, small wood houses all piled one against the other or grey buildings of apartments all placed one next to the other with little space in between you may say.
The city is all the same wherever you look, no colors or trees in these streets, but cables and cables all hanging from the towers, the fast skyliner goes trough all this in second, leaving a taste of inmensity and nothing particular about the city. From time to time then you will found huge metro stations with up to three floors, or highways stepping one over the other in an exercise of space optimization.
Then you notice that this is one of the identity signals of japan, the intrincated and complex transportation systems that sprawls all over. Tokyo station is one the biggest station in heart more than 3 million people past there everyday. The metro (or the metros as there are several subway systems) is the first example of the self similar behavior in japan.
The metro in japan is quite complex and effective, but it is just a reflex about the communications in japan, the coutry is all wired and the Shinkasen "bullet train" can take you in two hours from the Tokyo center to the Kyoto center.
The metro in Japan is a subject on its own, there are three private companies that fill the city with stations every few blocks, rules and organization is everything in the metro. The tickets machines show a very complicated network with numbers and signs, a nice challenge for the first timer. People line up in front of the doors, they jump into the wagon in a three parallel rows, you have to turn off you mobile, people do not speak, they do not look at each other, they sleep, they stand in silence as the morning train fills more than its limit. Everybody own a cell phone with a screen as big as a credit card, everybody plays at something in the metro, they don't talk to nobody they play little monsters r chat with virtual teenagers.
In the telephone there is always little things hanging, from little penguins to lamps and avery sort of little things. Even the tie workers have one or many of those things. Mens in suit and tie are all over, they have identical suits and ties and shirts, just time to time you look at some young guy with a modern suit but not that often.
Tokyo is all full activity at any time, people come and go rather quickly, beautiful girls dressed in very expensive clothes share the street with suit workers, boys and girls from school (The uniform is real indeed) all walk into the street walking fast and not looking too much. At the beginning it very nice to feel the rhythm of the city but that wont last much. In the Shinjuku side the buildings are the main characters, the city hall building is perfect for Tokyio, you can easily imagine an empire of evil in the near future ruling the world all from this building, the buildings around are not so nice but they make the ambient.
The next thing to notice is the red district just a few blocks away, no prostitutes on the street just teenagers smiling in the pictures. It is very hard to really what is all about but the light and signs are all over filling the imagination. There a re few streets all in red, and at the background the out loud music of queen, as the play "we will rock you" is just few meters away and then adds to the scene. The scent of curry, rice, noodles and a lot of sigs (a lot) makes this a very "Shinjuku" place to be.
In Tokyo everything is so much of it. The electronics market fills blocs and blocks with apparel and hardware, software and tons of ads all over, the brain gets a little touched after all of this. One building just for the mac, every item they ever made all for sale in this place, selling photoshop like potatos in the street is really an experience. They love the markets in the foremost deep meaning, sell and buy, any kind of things and any kind of forms of selling, we have seen luxury markets, electronics markets, pleasure markets, fish markets, book markets, food markets, all indeed is way too much.
So Tokyo is place to be, but i am not so sure if it is a place to live as it gets into your breakfast, your tea and everywhere. You can feel the rythm of the world indeed, the pace is way to fast and it never stops. You become to feel as a Gnu, a little peace in sand in the ocean, everything goes so fast so furious. I liked it, it feels like your are looking at the world face to face, you start to notice how money is made and where it goes. Tokyo is the clas between the traditional and the htper moder, everything that has ahppend has happened over there, they work, they live and wail in line for the next wagon of the train.
