Tokyo [antikvár]

Tokyo is such a huge, sprawling city that you could spend a lifetime exploring it. At first glance, it may strike you as a nondescript labyrinth of concrete housing estates and office blocks traversed by overhead express- ways and railway lines - an urban wasteland. Nevertheless, it doesn't take long to realise that, like all great cities, Tokyo is a bizarre conundrum, a riddle of contradictions that springs from the tension between the large-scale ugliness and the meticulous attention to detail that meets the attentive eye at every street corner, and the tensions between the frantic rhythms of 20th- century consumer culture and the quiet moments of stillness that are the legacy of other, older traditions. Tokyo is the nesting place of both Japan Inc and the lineages of Japan's past. Reposing beside fashionable Ginza and administrative Nihombashi is the Imperial Palace, with its gardens and photogenic views. In the heart of Akasaka, surrounded by the international-stan- dard hotels, trendy boutiques and high-class eateries, is Hie-jinja Shrine. The downtown regions of Ueno and Asakusa are home to some splendid museums and to bustling Senso-ji Temple, possibly Japan's liveliest Bud- dhist temple. And just two hours from Tokyo by train are the historical areas of Kamakura and Nikko, and the scenic regions of Hakone and Mt Fuji. While Tokyo sports some of the world's biggest and most lavish department stores, the average Tokyo suburb hasn't fallen prey to supermarket culture - the streets are lined with tiny specialist shops and restau- rants, most of which stay open late into the night. Close to the soaring office blocks in the business districts and commercial centres are entertainment quarters - mazes of narrow alleys that blaze with neon by night and offer an intoxicating escape from the '12 hours a day' working regimen that is the lot of Tokyo's surging crowds of office workers. And in the shadow of the overhead express- ways and the office blocks exist pockets of another Tokyo - an old wooden house, a kimono shop, a Japan- ese inn, an old lady in kimono and get a sweeping the pavement outside her home with a straw broom. As might be expected of a city that has established itself as one of the economic powerhouses of the modern world, what confronts the visitor more than anything else is the sheer level of energy in Tokyo. On the busy train lines, even at 11 pm on a Monday evening there is