'To make tea:
First boil the water,
Then prepare the tea,
Sip it appreciatively,
That is all you need to know.'
So renowned tea expert Sen no Rikyuu describes the tea ceremony, which is always held in a small room where harmony, neatness, purity and quiet prevail. The room is furnished extremely plainly with cushions to sit on, teapot and cups, flowers in a vase, and a panel of Japanese calligraphy on the wall. The guests take their tea, which is served with a sweet cake, and drink it silently. They take pleasure not only in the tea and the bun, but in the room and the companionship. The host or hostess approach their guests with sensitivity and sympathy as they offer the tea, and those participating enjoy the atmosphere filled with affection and shared emotions. We were not fortunate enough to attend a tea ceremony while in Japan, but we felt as if we were the guests of the Japanese as we wandered the streets of Tokyo.

Whether in the crowded and elegant boulevards of Ginza or the narrow lanes of Shibuya we were always made to feel at home by our kind and courteous hosts. As the poet Novalis said, 'Where is this journey taking us? Home, always home.' Herman Hesse wrote that our home is in the East, motherland of our souls. 'The East is everywhere and nowhere, the embodiment of all times,' he wrote. Living in modern times, our roots have been left far behind, however, and going to Tokyo was a kind of travelling to the East for us. Indeed the word Tokyo means 'capital of the East'. The city was founded in 1457 as a small fishing village called Edo on the shore of the Gulf of Tokyo. In time the village grew and became the capital of the shogun rulers, and by the end of the 18th century was one of the largest cities in the world. When the Emperor Meiji settled here in 1869 it was renamed Tokyo, meaning 'capital of the East'. The desire for modernisation was already gathering momentum, and western technology entered Japan, gradually changing Tokyo's appearance.

People hurry to meet their lovers and friends, perhaps at an expensive restaurant serving Japanese or foreign cuisine, a beer house, fashionable café, bookshop or shopping centre.
The district of Shibuya, lit up at night by garish neon signs, is where the young people gather. Here, as everywhere else, it is possible to see the changing face of Japan: perfectly groomed young girls dressed in bright sugar colours, boys with earrings, punks, and other young people wearing fancy dress, their painted faces responding to the rock and jazz rhythms flowing through the streets. The modern face of Japan is nowhere so strikingly evident as in Shinjuku, where glass-walled skyscrapers reach up to the clouds. The Metropolitan Government Building designed by the celebrated architect Kenzo Tange is the pride of modern architecture, its twin towers said to have been inspired by Notre Dame.