Such is the inadequacy of our public transport and the chronic gridlock on city roads that the need to depart home at 6 a.m. for the airport is a relief. The taxi ride from the south of the city takes about half-anhour; a little later and there would be no guarantee of making check-in for the long flight to Tokyo.
This is a prelude to experiencing what must be the best transport system in the world. Before this, however, I have to run the gauntlet of the transfer from terminal 1 to terminal 3 at Heathrow with little time to spare. This sweaty experience will be a familiar one to regular travellers to North America.
Relaxation is at hand on the excellent Virgin Atlantic Airbus with its young and friendly cabin crew, about half of whom are native English-speakers. The passengers are mostly Japanese nationals; the remainder, like myself, are going on business or are expats returning to their jobs in banks, schools and multinational corporations.
One aspect of the 12-hour journey over Scandinavia and across Siberia is remarkable. There is a complete absence of the kind of minor disorder that characterises transatlantic flights. The atmosphere is one of relative calm with no long queues for toilets, no hassled crew, and well-behaved children: the East is nigh.
Railway pass
With the help of a Japanese friend I validate my Japan Railways pass at Narita (a wonderful value that must be purchased before departure) and begin the 700-mile journey to Shimonoseki at the extreme western tip of Honshu, where the Sea of Japan meets the Pacific. The place is famous for fugu (blowfish), a potentially deadly delicacy. I manage this trip with two brief changes in a little under seven hours on the Shinkansen, the "bullet train".
These sleek, streamlines locomotives glide along at speeds of up to 300 km per hour on continuously welded lines that eliminate the familiar clicketyclack of our rail travel. The carriages are finely upholstered and the trolley refreshment service is first-class. Like most Japanese, the train staff are unfailingly courteous and helpful. All departures and arrivals are announced in English as well as Japanese. Station names and the electronic information boards, are similarly bilingual, making this a most userfriendly country for the visitor without a word of the language.
Central stations
The Japanese attitude to transport is evident in the fact that rail stations are central and focal parts of any community, not the peripheral no-go areas common in the West. In Kyoto, the ancient capital with many temples and shrines, the station is at the hub of the city's life. It is a wonder of architectural design with a magnificent honeycombed steel ceiling that epitomises the coexistence of the old and the new in Japan.
Kyoto escaped bombing on cultural grounds, but many of Japan's most splendid modern buildings resulted from disasters, both natural and manmade. Kobe, surely one of the truly beautiful cities in the world with a near ideal climate, responded to the 1995 earthquake with a rebuilding programme as remarkable for its architectural flair as for its extraordinary courage and enterprise. These qualities are most apparent in Hiroshima, whose very name is a black mark on the century now ending. It is a strange feeling to travel by tram from the imposing railway station along the centre of the spacious boulevards to the Peace Memorial Park that commemorates the destruction of the city by the first atomic bomb on August 6th, 1945.
At the park's entrance is the A-bomb Dome, one of the very few buildings that remained standing after the attack and left in its ruined state as a reminder of the awful day. The Memorial Museum, a place of pilgrimage for Japanese and foreigners alike, is an imaginatively laid out exhibition of contemporary artifacts and photographs supplemented by models and video displays. The most chilling exhibit is the typed page ordering the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and two other cities.
Modern Japan
Back to Tokyo, a city that literally rose from the ashes caused by US aerial bombing at the end of the second World War. A few days here can give the visitor only the most superficial acquaintance with the capital. As in the other cities, the transport infrastructure is first-class. Apart from the subway, the JR Yamanote line makes an overground loop through the city, allowing one to glimpse most of the important centres. There is Roppongi, the night playground, Ginza, the very stylish shopping district with its attractive modern architecture, and Shinjuku, the best district for a one-day visit. Here one may experience modern Japan with its high-class stores, discount shopping, imposing government offices, hostess clubs and strip bars.
After a 10-day visit that included the nuclear power station scare it was back to Dublin to face grey autumn weather, traffic gridlock and cumulative jet-lag. October and November are ideal months for the Irish visitor to Japan. The weather is usually warm and sunny and, if you can avoid being run down by one of the many cyclists permitted to ride on pavements, you are likely to crave a quick return.
Public transport, Japanese style: the monorail from central Tokyo to Haneda Airport