The giant plaster Godzilla head hanging ominously (enough) over the rooftop of our high-rise hotel was barely noticeable down on the buzzing, glowing, bustling, oddly tidy streets below.  It seemed the real thing wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in today’s Tokyo. 

Long and narrow alleyways contrast traditional Kaiseki dining with sub-street-level Girls Bars; manic pachinko parlors with the occasional ancient Buddhist temple—contributing to the feeling, for first-timers as ourselves, of otherworldliness.  It was precisely the promise of that feeling that compelled our travel halfway across the known world. 

A Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto revealed a more familiar, rural side of Japan; if, at 200mph, creating new realities through a camera lens. More Zen garden than neon jungle, the land/soulscape 300-miles southwest of Shinjuku helped ground our heels and, via nearby Osaka, ease us toward our final stop in Beijing, China.

Japan was a long-time coming; Beijing, a mere year on our heartthrob tattoo artist’s waitlist.  Still, the over 600-year-old, 3.5-mile Mutianyu span of the Great Wall was certainly not to be missed, even in the biting early-morning cold of November.  We came this far.