Travelling Between Edo and Tokyo

Tokyo is a city of contrasts.  

From 1603 until 1868 it was called Edo and served as the Tokugawa shogunate centre of power (de-facto capital) of Japan.  In 1869 it officially became capital when Emperor Meiji moved there form Kyoto.  Tokyo surfaced.  It has since survived two major disasters, one natural (an earthquake in 1923) and one unnatural (the World War II bombings in 1945).   Today, it is a modern metropolis where, at times, you still feel like you are walking around in Edo.

Tokyo is said to be very homogeneous - very Japanese.  That could not be further from the truth.  It is city with influences from the entire world.  Where design, art, music, food and architecture is taken from all over the world, adopted with open arms and then created into something new.

A great example of this is the music I heard on the south side of Yoyogi-koen.  If you walk along the street that borders this park (which by the way is the same green space where a beautiful Shinto shrine stands in honor of Emperor Meiji) you will see Japanese youth, dressed up, with all their musical gear and amps and speakers, belting out tunes.  The all girl threesome dressed in neon pink, yellow and blue tights belting out punk tunes.  The trio dressed in jeans, longish hair, singing ballads accompanied with acoustic guitar.  Another, playing heavy metal.  Others mixing rock with classical instruments.  Expressing themselves in Japanese but in a style that is not.

Japan is a place that may have had a history of isolation but it is one that is pushing this world forward in terms of creativity by taking what the world has to offer, mixing it and breeding something new.  This is what makes Tokyo and what makes it so different from Edo.

One minute you are in Edo the next you are in Tokyo.  One city block you are in Edo the next you are in Tokyo.  Skyscrapers are backdrops to shrines and temples. Teens and twenty-somethings dressed in neon pinks and yellows with pumps and ribbons in their hairs visiting a shrine. Children, women and men dressed in traditional outfits walking on busy neon-lit streets.  Then again this might be what makes Tokyo so special.





Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!

Comments

Sleepwalker said…
What are your feelings about Tokyo? Does it awe you? Scare you? Leave you indifferent? Does its contrasts resonate with you? Soak it up and enjoy! Txs for the pix!
October 26, 2008 at 12:58 PM
Olivier said…
It is the most amazing city I have been in. Then again it is the one with my most vivid memories ;-). But seriously....just a mix of what this world can create and be if we all just play nicely together and respect it each other.
October 27, 2008 at 3:02 AM
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