Infinite Tokyo

One of the most precious things about living in Tokyo is the walking. Walking its lanes - big or small - opens up worlds that are endlessly fascinating.

There is no other way to imbibe this city into your pores. But to set off without a goal, armed with a sturdy pair of legs, robust curiosity and a love for serendipity. Oh yes and a camera. Tokyo is there to inhale, feel, embrace...

If walks in Singapore had the predictable orderliness of a Yellow Pages, ambling in Tokyo has the edge of an animal straying out of its territory.

Whether its my cool morning walking routine or a weekend stroll with Better Half down a busy district, the idea is the same - to snoop around Tokyo's infinite folds and sniff out unique sights and stories that I know I cant find any where else.


Tokyo oozes with photo ops- you wish your eye lids were camera shutters.Blimey you can just stand and people watch all day!

You can either meet Tokyo's funky rhythm head-on by walking on the main bustling roads and crowded shopping districts (Shibuya,Ometesando,Roppongi...) or just crawl incognito into the million cavernous lanes that branch off into their own secret worlds. Either way it commands your attention and doesnt let you blink.

If I am in Roppongi (pub area by night) early morning the black clad soldiers are out on dot getting spewed out of the Roppongi subway station, single file, orderly and Godamn fashionable. Cutting edge corporate fashion on display..

If you want to go 'high power' theres Kasumagaseki/Akasaka teeming with suited bureaucrats and other important decision makers flowing in and out of power corridors, a colony of penguins...

Shibuya and its teeming youth, the air screaming with fashion statements and funky hairdos..but all saying 'young is hip'...

Ometesando - Harajuku....home of the designers, where Fashion rests and resides, where Design spins elegantly on an esoteric orbit far from yours and there are souls who understand and speak its language. I am happy just feeling its vibrations under the sidewalks I'm walking on.

Or even Azabu Juban - my home - where in some lanes time forgot to tick and stood still.

Or the lovely gardens right in the heart of Tokyo where you least expect to see them.

Not to mention the countless other lanes and areas that will always remain unattainable in the infinity of Tokyo ...zany architecture, hole in the wall eateries, funny posters, risque ads....so many sights, only two pairs of eyes and one teeny camera...how is one to devour all this in a lifetime?

PS: All these images have come from within a radius of not more than a km from my home...except Shibuya which is about 3 kms maybe...

Pictures Top to bottom, L to R:

School children,Hiroo station ; Hair raising experience in Shibuya!;

Hole in the wall eatery with flapping 'noren' panelled curtains in a bylane, Nishi Azabu ; Jizo - patron of aborted and miscarried babies, at Zozoji Shrine; Old world charm in Azabu Juban

A Jaguar on the lose, Keyakizaka, Roppongi

Lazy noon at Azabu Juban ; Morning walk at Roppongi; Aoyama cemetery ;

Blue Hair day, Harajuku ; Only for blue dogs, Ometesando; Horsing around, Roppongi;

Roppongi "Hirsu" (Hills) ; In Shibuya