The layers of Tokyo

Nihonbashi, with freeway above and canal beneath

We didn't go on the fast roads. We saw them, above our heads or beneath high windows, intertwining on concrete stilts. Below the roads are the surface railways, then the residential and commercial streets, some narrow, some wide. The river and its tributary canals are another level of interconnection. Under the surface lies the network of subway stations and underground trains.

Canal dredging under a motorway

Tokyo's houses used to look like this

This is so for most modern cities, Montreal springs to mind, but cramped and crowded Tokyo is a particularly impressive example of how the multiple layers of infrastructure work. Not only that, but the history of the place appears layered too. Concealed or partly concealed beneath one thing is another. Most of what we saw was super-modern, but below the modernity or in hidden corners we caught glimpses of how Tokyo used to be, in the past.

View of Tokyo station from the roof garden of the Kitte building

Yurikamone Line near Daiba station

Fuji headquarters on Odaiba, Tokyo's artificial island

Bank of Japan (built 1896), new skyscrapers beyond it

For all my observation in public places, I could not see below the surface of the Japanese people themselves. They are reserved people who would hesitate to let you penetrate their privacy.

Perhaps the reason the parks of Tokyo are so soothing is that they offer an escape from the multilayered modern city and its complexity. You are at last in a setting that looks relatively natural; even though the layout of the garden is artificially designed. Without distraction, you are free to concentrate on one thing at a time.