The Tokyo Experience: A Preface

In the next few posts, I will talk about my trip to Tokyo over the past few days and relate my experiences and impressions of it. Those posts will probably happen sometime tomorrow afternoon once I have collected my thoughts a tad. I soaked up a lot of stuff over the past few days and am still kind of trying to figure out the best way to present all of the information to you. I will probably break up the posts by making each post on a different day in Tokyo. That would be easy on me and it will also make it to where the pics that I show with each post don't bump into each other like they have on previous pic heavy posts.

Having said that, if I were going to sum up my vacation in a handful of sentences I would say this. First, Tokyo is not where you want to go if you are looking for a relaxing vacation. The Tokyo experience is a relentless assault upon the senses. There is amazing modern architecture sitting right next to stoic buildings from days gone by. There is super high tech stuff that intermingles with centuries old traditions. Lastly, there are so many shops, smells(good and bad), styles, and sounds going on all around you that at times, seeing Tokyo can be a downright tiring experience. I have been to a lot of big cities throughout my travels both in Japan and the United States, but Tokyo by far and away takes the cake when it comes to size and population. I am not sure if I would call Tokyo a beautiful city, but it is easily the most diverse and interesting city I have ever seen.

Now that I have piqued your curiosity, I will let you let you suffer a bit. I will most definitely be making some huge posts tomorrow.

Oh, one more thing, while I have come to the conclusion that the movie, "Lost in Translation" is a tad off the mark when it comes to Japanese people and Japan as a whole, its visual representation of Tokyo is dead on.