ABSTRACT

As visitors to an exotic and much-studied city,

we were wary of our position as outsiders, blind

to so much of what happens and why, but also

able to see some things clearly due to our lack

of familiarity. Rather than trying to work out the

logic or meaning of the whole, we started this

extended field research by diving straight into

the middle. Our students, on exchange from

Melbourne, commenced by catching a train into

Shinjuku Station, choosing an exit, and then

working their way out through this opening into

the surroundings.