Tokyo: Looks like the future, smells like chicken

We stayed in Shinjuku, the Manhattan of Tokyo, in a hotel that would make a 1980s soap star feel right at home. I was blinded by the crystal chalendiers. I yearned for pink satin robes and chilled chablis. The theme song to the Young and the Restless (I am not joking) played softly in the background while I gorged myself at the breakfast and lunch buffets. Orientation would be two days long (lots of seminars about culture shock and teaching--probably should have paid better attention).

Between Tokyo's clean streets and thick grey skies, neon-lit skyscrapers rise up like credits on a movie screen. The buildings are so bright with print and televisions ads, and signage in kanji, hiragana, katakana, and English, that one gets the sense that the structures are actually in motion themsleves. Concrete robots squatting on some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

Between the broad boulevards, there are narrow alleyways, with little wood noodle bars and bar-bars. These little alleys smell like chicken and car exhaust and sweat, and look to me like something out of a Graham Greene novel. This mix of the hyper-futuristic and the traditional comes up alot in descriptions of Tokyo. Eating at one of these old-fashioned dining spots (if you have seen Tampopo, you know what I'm talking about, my companions and I contemplated ordering the "crab guts lightly" for dinner.