Tokyo

 

So much city, so little time.
Every city worth its marketing budget brands itself as “many cities in one.” Tokyo, of course, doesn’t have to.

In Japan’s dizzying capital, it’s just a given that travelers are here to take on the world’s strongest dose of sensory overload -- in a neon-infested sea of ad-pumping jumbotrons at Shibuya Crossing; under a canopy of blossoming cherry trees in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden; in a sports arena packed with raucous sumo fans in Ryogoku Kokugikan Stadium; at one of Tokyo’s 160,000-odd restaurants, a culinary empire boasting more Michelin stars than anywhere else; or within earshot of bellowing tuna auctioneers at Tsukiji Central Fish Market, home to more than 1,000 stalls in a hangar-style building that comprises one of the largest wholesale seafood bazaars in the world.  

However many worlds, wards and districts one experiences in Tokyo, the sense is that you’re always just scratching the surface -- even if your wallet disagrees. And is there a more deferential place to pay through the teeth?

In Tokyo, “the women behind the registers bow to you, and I don’t mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street,” observes David Sedaris. “Then they say what sounds to me like ‘We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god.’” 

If that's not worth your love, nothing is.