There was also a frenzy of highway and freeway building, a frenzy, which even after the Olympics had finished, ceased to stop. Tokyo of the new millennium is sometimes surprising. Visitors come expecting a city of the future and are often surprised to encounter aspects caught in the past. Indeed it's true, everyday people swing gadgets and gimmicks from every available dangling point. Go into an office, the bank or the post office, it's efficient, but the equipment tells a slow, old story.
Foreign visitors are still few and far between.
You won't see the world walk by in Tokyo. Perhaps it's only the shopping centre named Times Square, or the building styled after the Empire State Building. There are signs, on every high street, written in English, but this is fashion English. Tokyo is unique and captivating. The heavy industries are concentrated in the southern part of Tokyo, Yokohama and Kawasaki.