Tokyo

TOKYO, JAPAN

Welcome to the world’s largest city and most populous metropolis – Tokyo. A vast sprawl of steel, concrete and neon ­stretching as far as the eye can see, Japan’s capital is a fuel-injected adrenaline rush and a place of superlatives. Within this orderly chaos of post-modernist architecture and bright flashing lights however, lie quieter backstreets, serene Shinto shrines and calming green spaces, providing a different setting to the otherwise sensory overload. For all its modernity, Tokyo is steeped in history. Prior to 1868, it was a small castle town known as Edo and the base of Japan’s hereditary military dictators, the ‘shoguns’. While the period of samurais, tea ceremonies and intense calligraphy is no more, its cultural remnants are still present today and are always ready to reveal themselves to visitors.