Beyond the Noren, Into the Rain

It always seems to rain when I arrive in Tokyo.

The raindrops streak across the train window as the city unfolds in muted grey, its skyline softened by mist. Neon lights flicker in puddles along the streets, their reflections rippling beneath the steady hum of a restless metropolis. Tokyo in the rain is a city that slows, its usual rhythm softened under a sea of umbrellas. The scent of simmering broth drifts from the noren-covered doorways of ramen shops, footsteps echo in narrow alleyways, and for a brief moment, the city belongs only to those who linger.

Tokyo is not unfamiliar to me. My aunt lives here, as do my cousins, and so from a young age, I found myself returning, the city etching itself into my life, one visit at a time. To me, Japan was never a distant place, never just a holiday destination. It was a second home, of sorts-a place where family meals were shared over ceramic bowls of steaming rice, where the voices of relatives filled rooms warmed by the hum of a kotatsu. It was where I first learned the language, not through textbooks, but through conversations at the dinner table, through laughter, through the casual corrections of an amused aunt who never let me get away with clumsy grammar.

But familiarity does not always mean belonging. Tokyo is a city that remains just beyond my grasp-one that I know intimately, yet can never claim as my own. I walk its streets with the ease of someone who has been here before, yet always with the awareness that I remain an outsider.

Perhaps that is why I return.

When it rains in Tokyo, the city takes on a different shape-quieter, more introspective. The usual facades blur, the edges soften. And in those moments, I find myself looking at the city, and at my place within it, with new eyes.

This book is not an attempt to define Tokyo, nor to explain it. It is simply a record of what I have seen, what I have felt, and what remains when the rain begins to fall.