33. Tokyo

And so finally we come to Tokyo, and I really have no idea how to cover Tokyo in this blog. It's one of my most favorite cities in the world, but also one of the ugliest, with very few traditional sights. So we have relatively few photos but I could write forever about the place, and since I know you prefer pictures to words, that's a problem. I also go there frequently on business, and Somchai and I have gone together a few times, so it will pop up several times if I do this chronologically, which will be pretty disjointed.

I'm going to stall for time while I figure this out by doing a (very) little history.

As I'm sure you remember from the Kyoto discussion Japan was always ruled by shoguns while the emperor played in Kyoto. There were various shogun dynasties who ruled from different cities, then generally fell during rebellions from their lieutenants, only to be replaced by a rival shogun. But the most powerful shogun dynasty of all was the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan from its base in Tokyo (then called Edo) from 1600 until 1868. Actually, a very, very distant relative of mine, Commodore Matthew Perry, was instrumental in the downfall of the shogun, as his American fleet humiliated Japan in 1853. On that date he forced Japan, which had been closed to foreigners for centuries, to open its ports to trade and establish diplomatic relations with the West. This exposed the weakness and backwardness of the shogun's regime, prompting reformers to ultimately rise up and topple him in 1868. This was done in the name of the emperor, who they then forced to move to Edo, which they renamed Tokyo. They then locked him up in the old shogun's palace, renaming it the imperial palace, and this new group modernised and militarised Japan. That's all the history you'd need to know as background to the Tokyo discussion to come, other than the fact that this increased militarism eventually led to the second world war, which led to the destruction of Tokyo, which accounts for its ugliness today.