Tokyo districts, designers and Alvar Aalto

20th April 2012

My first couple of years in Tokyo, I spent working in Shibuya.

Tokyo is seemingly made up of many cities within the greater metropolis of 36 million people. Each centre has its own distinct character and each is dominated by different demographics. While the Ginza is an upmarket district for sophisticates, Shibuya is a young persons district. Shinjuku is the Japanese salaryman's drinking area, whereas Roppongi is the watering hole for foreigners. Forget London or New York, Tokyo really is the city that never sleeps.

Shinjuku is further divided into Golden Gai, an old district of quaint ramshackle bars for the older salaryman, Shinjuku 3-Chome, for gay bars and transvetite clubs, 2-Chome for late night dives frequented by younger rockers and further along to Shin Okubo for Columbian and other gangster-run holes for drugs and rows of streets divided by nationality for whores operated by the Yakuza.

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After two years of helping to set up a new school in Shibuya, I moved onto a well-established school in north Tokyo called International Language Centre. ILC had a reputation among other language teachers for many reasons.

Robert Twigger took over from me in Shibuya and moved into my old flat in the outskirts of Yokohama. Robert was later to become an adventurer and acclaimed author with followers such as Alexy Sayle singing his praises. I was to feature in his first best seller, Angry White Pyjamas.

Jeremy and I had promised each other that we would make our separate ways to Tokyo and it was he who landed on his feet at ILC. Jeremy got me an introduction and urged me to move over to join him. I dragged my feet for a while but soon realised that making the move was the right thing to do.

We had arrived in Tokyo in 1990 three months apart with me landing first. There had been promise of well-paid work - Japan was booming. We got there only to witness the bubble burst but it was interesting nevertheless to observe the contrast between pre- and post-implosion.

One year after I left, the school I had helped to establish folded and had to close down. Robert Twigger managed to make a move over to ILC for a while before settling into supply teacher work for local schools and concentrating on his training in Aikido with the Tokyo Riot Police.

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When I first arrived in Tokyo, I was sipping cups of tea from fine bone china in hotel lobbies for 1,500 yen and buying take-away crustless steak sandwiches for lunch at 2,000 yen.

A couple of years later, Tokyo witnessed quite a different boom. Eat-and-drink-all-you-can restaurants sprouted up all over the place. We could spend two hours eating the best Sirloin steaks for the price of a bubble period cup of tea. We could go to Korean Barbecues and Shabu-Shabu buffets and fill up for the same price. Prices never recovered to what they had been and even 15 years later, we were eating the most amazing sushi for the equivalent of 50p a plate. Plates always have had and always will have two pieces of sushi on them.

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ILC was located in Jimbocho which was also known as Book District. The walls on the underground station were decorated in colour tiles in shapes of books stacked up on shelves. The main street, Yasakuni Dori, was dominated by bookshops and towards Yasakuni Shrine, galleries selling Ukiyoe, Japanese woodblock prints and other collectables such as Samurai swords and the like.

Yasakuni Shrine has a checkered reputation for it is here that the Japanese war heroes are enshrined. There is also a war museum. At special ceremonies marking the end of the war, Japanese politicians come to pay their respects to the war dead completely aware of the controversy and anger this stirs up in neighbouring Asian countries.

Right wing pro-Imperial groups crusade up and down this street in convoys of trucks with huge speakers blaring out nationalist wartime tunes and screaming their support for the emperor who they want to be restored to deity.

At the end of World War II Emperor Hirohito made a live radio broadcast announcing Japan's surrender. His voice had never been heard before and people were shocked to hear the voice of God. They were also shocked to learn of their surrender and thousands of people committed ritual suicide.

These demonstrations up and down Yasukuni Dori of Imperialist support may be limited to special ceremonial dates but they seemed to happen all the time.

On the other side of the road opposite the Shrine is the Budokan, where Bob Dylan performed and The Beatles debuted in Japan. I saw Eric Clapton perform here and in the surrounding gardens of Kitonomaru Park and along the banks of the moat we used to have our office Cherry Blossom parties where we would eat our Bento Boxed Lunches under the trees at the end of March. We would avoid the grounds of the Shrine although the trees were beautiful here. Parties in the grounds of the Shrine were usually dominated by drunk Imperialists and although they would not give foreigners much trouble, admiring the beauty of the trees was not worth the embarrassment of being heckled to join their drunken parties.

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After several years in Jimbocho, I went to work at Honda in Aoyama Itchome just along from Omotesando and Harajuku, the designer district where all the world's designers had their head outlets in Tokyo. Beautiful buildings for Prada vied for street space with Burberry and Loius Vuitton, Chanel and Hermes. I used to spend my lunch breaks gazing longingly at beautiful designer furniture and once a year during Tokyo Design Week, I would wonder from one party to another drinking champagne and viewing the latest chairs, tables, lamps and table wear from world renowned designers. Absolutely brilliant examples of some of the best modern architecture in the world can be seen in this part of Tokyo.

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Imagine the pleasant surprise I experienced when I discovered that one of the most renowned modern architects of all time was not only born near where I am in Finland but that there are examples of his designs from 1925 to the late 60's all within easy reach. Alvar Aalto was born in Kuortane and had his first design built in Alajärvi. Seinäjoki, the fastest growing city in Finland, is centred around a collection of his buildings. Anyone who knows anything about architecture and furniture design will know of his iconic chairs and three- and four-legged bentwood stacking stools.

While the 80km round trip to Alajärvi might be a bit far right now for a bike trip, Seinäjoki is an easy sub-30-minute train ride away.

Seinäjoki beckons.