I always thought that visiting Japan would be like taking a trip to the future. I imagined gleaming buildings, shops filled with every imaginable electronic device, walls of neon flickering with exotic adverts, and a nation so advanced it would make most European countries seem like they were still using horse-drawn buggies.
Apart from the towering walls of neon, I was wrong. Travelling through Tokyo, Yokohama and one distant rural town, I came away with an impression of a country that had all the zest, zip or zeal of a middle-aged man contemplating his afternoon nap.
It’s true that Tokyo’s harbour, with its hundreds of container ships lined up and laden with some of the world’s best cars, computers, cameras and game consoles is still a breathtaking sight. Cross the Rainbow Bridge and you get some sense of the still extant power of Japan’s manufacturing base and that it remains the world’s second largest economy. After all, the label “Made in Japan” on a product means that it has been better designed and is more reliable than goods produced elsewhere.
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