Making gentle conversation in Tokyo

Travel is one of the ways in which one can extend one's horizons and break long-held stereotypes. There are fewer places around the planet that offer a lesson in deconstruction of ingrained myths than the island of Japan.

Before I embarked on this voyage, I somewhat knew that Japan was considered a developed country. Statistics often show that it is the world's second largest economy, but this is never mentioned sufficiently copiously and I often had a sneaky feeling that Japan was all about huge economic statistics but not extensive development. The real development must be in Western Europe and North America, I believed.