I have no overview. I know the city the same way you read a language you’re learning: patchily. At best I see isolated fragments. In other cities I walk, learning geography through the soles of my shoes, but in Tokyo I take the metro, and come out at each station, blinking in the sunlight or the neon, with no idea what lies between there and Shinjuku Station, the hub of Tokyo where I arrive in the metropolis once every couple of months on the express train from the mountains.

This time I am meeting friends from home, burly Canadian guys who are carrying overnight bags and their own excitement with them. They’re ready for anything.

We come out at Asakusa station, in the midst of squat concrete edifices dating from the years immediately post-war. It is after dark, and the day tourists have all gone back to the classier hotel districts, leaving us nearly empty streets lit by cheap basement level izakaya bar lights. The air smells like incense from the famous temple nearby, of soy-sauce from the daytime street stalls that sell grilled sembei crackers, of dust and exhaust fumes and concrete. Each city has its own smell; a city as large as Tokyo has many. This is Asakusa’s trademark perfume.

We cross the street and check in to the capsule hotel by the station: it’s one of the few in Tokyo that take women. The clerk behind the desk shows us to our lockers, and finds pyjamas big enough for the guys. They’re delighted: Japan is already living up to its reputation. The hotel doesn’t offer pyjamas for women, just locker space for your things, and place to change. Fortunately, I’ve brought my own.

My friends head to the men’s section to sleep. I retire to the women’s change rooms. The whole place reminds me of the change rooms at the gym, and smells similar, only with an edge of alcohol and smoke. The last train for the night has, like a retreating tide, left bargoers stranded all over the city, and the price of a room at a capsule hotel is, for many, less than a taxi fare home. Someone is snoring, loudly, as I climb the ladder to my assigned bunk. I crawl in, to find myself with ample room, a lamp, television, and alarm clock. I worry briefly about the guys, imagining them squeezed in like commuters on the morning train. There’s nothing I can do about that now. I pull down the screen at my feet, blearily watch the end of some late-night TV show, and fall asleep.

In the morning I bathe overlooking Tokyo’s jumbled skyline, and come back down to meet the guys coming out from breakfast, looking rested and if possible even more excited than the night before. Ready for Tokyo.