Enlarge Photo

At first glance, Tokyo is an uncompromisingly modern city, the streets below its slick skyscrapers teeming with affluent people impeccably dressed in Western designer garb. Duck around a corner from the tower blocks, though, and there will be elaborately coiffured ladies shuffling along in traditional kimonos, a shrine where ancient traditions are followed and neatly uniformed workers slurping noodles at a hole-in-the-wall diner.

The Oscar-winning film Lost in Translation captured some of these contradictions, albeit in the clichéd way of Hollywood. The hero, Bob, played by Bill Murray, stumbles around in a slightly surreal city, drinking heartily in the Park Hyatt’s glitzy New York Bar before lurching through a psychedelic-themed nightscape of karaoke bars, rock clubs and crazy characters.

It was accurate in that Tokyo can do wackiness with the best of them, but the film ignored some of the intrinsic beauty and harmony that are also parts of this enigmatic city. It’s a place where harmony is valued above all else, allowing some 13 million people to coexist in a virtually crime-free, rule-obeying, ultraefficient and rudeness-bereft society.

For visitors from the more abrasive Western cities or, indeed, from other parts of Asia, the unerring politeness contributes to major culture shock. After a couple of days, bowing, or at least a firm forward inclination of the head and a quick konichi-wah (“good day”), becomes an instinctive reaction. Such pleasantries are basics of the Japanese social order, so much more sincere than the have-a-nice-day banalities so prevalent in the West.

Having said that, Tokyo enthusiastically embraces everything from the West, whether it is rock and roll, baseball or trendy clothing. The Ginza district, downtown, home to classy stores and some of the priciest real estate in the world, recently hosted two major openings, entire buildings devoted to the wares of Armani and Bulgari. It also signaled that Tokyoites, after some rocky years in the economic doldrums, have settled back into their lavish spending patterns.

The city’s affluence, and accompanying high prices, can make it hard on the wallet, even for those used to traveling at the sharp end of the plane. Everyone would do well to scan price lists and menus carefully and do the currency-conversion math; hailing a cab from the airport to downtown on arrival will leave you $250 lighter, an amount that in some places would buy a rather tony hotel room. In Tokyo, going all-out at a fine restaurant will leave you with a breathtaking bill—and the equally breathtaking sight of cherry blossoms in a park costs nothing.