Without Borders: Tokyo: The Final Frontier

Temples, tempura and Tokyo: the infamous triad that precedes any real notion of Japan. Like a vortex, Tokyo as a city sucks you into it's cold, monolithic grip and spits you out into an infinite abyss of thronged city streets and a post-apocalyptic pit.

Many cities are incomparable to the size and stature of even what a Tokyo cityscape exudes. It is triumphant, overwhelming and completely cannibalistic. The city will devour you with onslaughts of everything. The biggest, and presumptuously the best, Tokyo's reputation can only preface the true dynamism of such a complex organism that seems to have no end and no soul.

Describing Tokyo in general may be a bit much to bite off and chew all at once, especially considering the spice and intense gusto of this monstrously-sized dish. So, consider this merely an overview of thought on a first impression.

The ticket clicked in the sty and the Shinkansen stub was released into Tokyo Station. Sometimes in crowded places, I like to stand perfectly still and sort of let the madness rush by me, as if I were Moses parting the Red Sea; the imaginably huge swells of crimson ocean ascend, as I stand stoic and poised, waiting for silence to break. At Tokyo Station, this silence was never possible. Standing still wasn't possible. There was a line behind every information booth, a swarm of people around every map, and an unfaltering zig zag of corporeal motion that had no origin. I thought briefly if I were a child, how big the world would always seem. And now here, in this nightmarish panic, like last call at a discount bridal shop, I looked at the world as exactly that big.

Everywhere you go in Tokyo there are people. No uninhabited corner to sneak a kiss, no quiet cafe to sip and sit pretending to write poetry, no stone left unturned. It's all happening, it's all here, and it's always right now. If one could describe Tokyo as an illness, I would liken it to a chronic migraine caused by the piercing sound of a jackhammer as heard through earphones. It's grating, coarse and inexhaustible.

Tokyo did have it's pockets of charm. Harajuku and Ebisu were two areas that careened toward a unique Japanese city.

There's no finale to this summary other than the photos I was able to take. Tokyo, like many big international cities, is a metropolis of all things exaggerated. From fashion to food and back again to culture, it's spread across the board as a city with seemingly everything--except an unexampled Japanese allure that I've become so fond of elsewhere in the country. Perhaps a second visit will warm my heart, or at least convince me that it has a hidden grace it has yet to bear.

Wakari Museum of Contemporary Art, Harajuku