It’s a tough call to find a suitable word that could span a city that has so many opposites. This is 48 hours in a city that’s open 48 hours a day 😮🇯🇵💪.

Shibuya : The worlds busiest crossroads:- https://youtu.be/Od6EeCWytZo

Where with drone tech’ you can play spot the English tourist 😁

From the top of this building ………

And this is a quiet day !

From this to ……… calm

Within 5 Mins on the Metro ……… To Tokyo’s version of Camden only quieter , Quirky Pavement Cafés , Vintage clothes shops……

…… and then a short step back to the madness – ramping up the blinding colour , noise and just plain singular weirdness of ” Harajuku ” area with the Harajuku girls and boys ( same gear naturally ) – befriended by Katie Perry , Madonna and Gwen Stefani

The entrance , the people , the focused concentration of life & commerce ….. exhausting and compelling equally.

And …. ( breathe out ) …… another short Metro ride with a reasonable metaphor for life 😉

…… swings again to the polar opposite ……

The peace of Koishikawa Korakuen Park ….. where the very first signs of 🌸Sokura !!🌸 ….. 🌳 cherry blossom are showing and across other public parks this puzzlingly leads to rare public displays of mass enthusiasm, Vast picnics , groups of friends in the parks and mandatory drinking of Jim Bean bourbon from 3 litre plastic containers. ……..

And ……… as if the implied theme here is that Tokyo is a roller coaster of a city – they oblige my metaphor with building one ! – bottom left photo on top of buildings !! 😮

On the way to watch baseball a National Japanese Obsession – and the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants win at home against the Chiba Lotte Marines 👏

Where they gained 2 new fans !!

Before you have time to understand the rules of Baseball and have learnt the Japanese for beer 🍺- ( Biru ) and Hot Dogs 🌭 ( Hotta Dogga) …. I kid you not 🤣……. it’s quite a simple language really .

It’s just time left to experience Tokyo Port and a Dinner cruise ……..

Again my 10 word / 1000 gesture linguistic skills appear to bridge the minor cultural chasms 🤪

And ……. so to bed ….. tomorrow the real business of this trip starts . Packing my to backpack 🎒 and the internal ✈️ flight to Shikoku Island . The start of the Japanese Camino in Takamatsu – to start the hike across the Shikoku 88 temple trail .

Until then ………. 👋