The Kyoto station goes up, and up, and keeps on going. On one side is a many-storied hotel; on the other, a department store with many floors. The roof of the station, where there is a roof, is a garden. But mostly the roof is cantilevered architecture. There are elevators and there are stairs, but the way to get where you want to go is the escalators. They seem to go on forever and they are a great viewing platform for the main floor of the station, the varying perspective of the architecture and the interplay of roof-no roof.

The train station in Kanazawa is also impressive, with a gateway like the gateway to a Shinto shrine, huge murals and a big clock. Not surprising to have a clock at a train station, you say. The clock is a water fountain. The clock is a water fountain that tells the accurate time, minute by minute. It is beautiful. And slightly mesmerizing. You could miss that train.

The Museum of the 21st Century is in Kanazawa. It is an amazing piece of architecture which at first one doesn't even see because its round outside glass walls are strung from ground to roof with morning glories. The Japanese love morning glories and plant them everywhere. A favorite of small shopowners who have no yard and not much room altogether is to treat them like potted plants. They seem to thrive, whether they are asked to be two feet tall or 22 feet tall. Because the center of the museum is a courtyard, there are almost no interior rooms. The morning glories cut the glare. The elevators are glass boxes. Everything seems to float in soft light in this museum, visit www.kanazawa21.jp/en/. In the basement is a wonderful exhibit of contemporary Japanese artists and many of the works are for sale. The exhibit changes, of course, as artists depart or come on the scene, but the museum policy is that the basement belongs to the currently working artist.

What fare

This article is about fast and future. And, of course, everyone's favorite topic, food. American fast food is everywhere. You can go to Japan and pretend you're not there at meal time, if that's your wish. In every Japanese city and town, Kentucky Fried Chicken, known as "Ken Chickie," McDonald's and Starbucks are ubiquitous and very popular. Japanese fast food also exists, in the form of noodle soup. They call "ramen" Japanese-Chinese, not very admiringly. The Japanese noodle soup is called either soba (thin buckwheat noodles in broth) or udon (thick wheat noodles in broth).

My favorite meal was breakfast and I ate every breakfast Japanese buffet style. I liked having miso soup for breakfast, just as I liked having pho for breakfast in Vietnam. Always there was rice and noodles. But best of all was the breakfast salad bars. Fruit in Japan is expensive and is a treat, generally considered a dessert at dinnertime. To get their nutrients, the Japanese eat salad for breakfast: greens, cabbages, seaweed in various guises, pickled and dried, fresh mushrooms, green beans, snap peas tomatoes and on Hokkaido, fresh corn kernels and cooked potatoes.

Our most unusual breakfast was at the Tokyo Tsukiji fish market, after experiencing the 6 a.m. tuna auction. One picture here shows my breakfast of sushi and sashimi at the Tsukiji market. From wholesaler to chef was about two and a half feet and from chef to me was about two and a half minutes.

Every day, 2,300 tons of marine product and 1,700 tons of fruit and vegetables are sold from the Tsukiji fish market. It's worth having to get up early to get to the market area, find a place to park and walk the considerable distance to get into the tuna auction area by 6 a.m. We were lucky. It is still possible for tourists to be right down on the floor with the sellers, the buyers and the tuna. Well, "lucky" if you don't mind the slop and the cold and the elbows from the buyers and sellers who wish you were not right down there in the pit. A viewers' gallery, which will be removed from the action, is planned. So go soon, because you want to be right there in the midst of a combination of a livestock auction and the stock market -- people flashing hand signals that "speak" volumes and people shouting words so clipped and fast that's it's not only another language, it's another language to the Japanese.

I cannot leave this article without elucidation regarding the toilets. Before you visit Japan, you might want to get an engineering degree, so that you can use the bathroom. True, many venues outside major cities still have the "eastern toilet" which most Americans call "the hole in the ground." But the Japanese are adopting the "western toilet" with bells and whistles. Almost literally with bells and whistles. There aren't instructions in English or any other language. You just have to learn experientially.

If you push one button that you think might flush, you discover it's the bidet button. If you then push another button you think might flush, you discover it warms the seat. Other buttons change the water temperature or flow of the bidet, but still no flush. The best thing to do before you go, which is to say, before you go to Japan, is to visit Web site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_toilets.

This article has covered trains, tuna auctions and toilets. There are many places to visit in Japan that are shrines and temples of art and beauty, manmade and natural and you may prefer to spend your time in them. In the next article, we'll go to the gardens and you may think it's about time.

Sayonara.