This language is hellishly difficult. Even with my pocket idiot’s guide to Japanese in my right hand, I couldn’t work out the sounds. On the plane, I’d tried to mug up on essential phrases like this polite ‘thank you’, which is used for just about everything, but I’d fallen asleep. Obviously, a night flight takes place during the night, as its name suggests. I should have realized that I’d set myself too many goals and that the combined effect of the champagne and exhaustion would mean that I’d sleep for half the flight. At least I was on form for the evening. With an eight-hour time difference, I was just waking up, but the sun was already setting over Tokyo.

At the airport, all the signs were in English. After collecting my luggage and withdrawing several thousand yen from the A.T.M., I easily found a taxi. I showed the driver the address of my hotel on my smartphone; he nodded and we drove for around forty minutes. Already the taxi was a novel experience. I thought this first taxi was an exception, but I soon found out that it was the rule. The driver wore white gloves and was dressed as if for a wedding. There was a transparent partition with an intercom between him and the passenger compartment. He handed me a moist towel in a plastic sachet. The seats had lacy covers worthy of my grandmother. A bit outlandish, kitsch, aseptic – a real culture shock.

I immediately thought of Louis, of his passion for Japanese cartoons. It was perfectly logical for his list of wonders to begin with Tokyo. He’d asked me several times to take him there, but I hadn’t found a moment to do so. Too much work, holidays reduced to the bare minimum. There, in that Tokyo taxi smelling strongly of cheap perfume, I promised myself I’d take him to Japan. For real.

I’d chosen a luxury hotel which a rapid online search told me was an absolute must. If Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation had been shot in 2017, it would have been in this establishment, without any doubt, an influential blogger had written. A compelling argument, which had convinced me. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but from the minute I set foot inside, I had no regrets. The hotel was in a quiet neighbourhood – Toranomon Hills – between the fortieth and sixtieth floors of a skyscraper that overlooked the city, and had an extraordinary view of Tokyo Tower, the red and white copy of the Eiffel Tower. The designer lobby was sophisticated and refined, highly original. Grandiose. I was beginning to feel feverish with excitement, telling myself I was going to love Tokyo.