Tokyo is a city of many collisions and nothing is more apparent than the fearlessness of the Japanese in juxtaposing the traditional and the avante-garde. I had just come out of an exhibition from a museum aptly named "21_21 Design Sight". As the name suggests, the museum's theme is looking beyond "20/20" (which is a number that suggests perfect vision) into the future.

On that day, next to this rather futuristic mindframe, preparations were made for an outdoor performance of Noh, a form of Japanese theater that reaches back to 14th century. The rehearsals were rather solemnly hush-hush and photography was forbidden. I certainly didn't come halfway around the world to not get my images, so I did the paparazzi thing and dug around the shrubbery at the far end of the park where I would get a good head start's run, should the security decide to come heading for me.