You’ve just stumbled on one of the true marvels of Tokyo and other large cities in Japan – people seem to find what they expect to find there.

If you expect to see a ‘Western’ country – that really is what you will see. Shinjuku will remind you of New York, Omotesando of London’s Chelsea district – Tokyo has an amazing, and very seductive, knack of fulfilling people’s expectations of it.

For some it is a Western city – there’s enough Japanese people who genuinely want it to be, so they won’t be offended.

For others it is a never ending jumble of villages and hamlets and towns and even cities, where crafts passed on for many generations are carried out, neighbours bathe together and catch up on gossip, families’ front rooms serve as shops, bowls of piping hot noodles in soup are transported by delivery boys on bicycles (fitted with huge gyroscopic devices.) These are a few of the thousands of things that make Tokyo ‘Asian’ too – for some, these are immediately apparent. For others, they would need to wilfully seek them out – but then you’d only seek them out if you knew they were there, and if you knew they were there, they’d immediately be apparent.

Whilst some people would need years to begin to uncover everything that this constantly changing city has to offer, others struggle to find enough to do in 2 days.

So please don’t be too harsh, it is a legitimate view, and there are plenty of people in Japan who would be delighted to hear it!