Tea, cats and a new hunger

I've never been especially fond of cats, yet here I am spending my 32nd birthday surrounded by them.

What's more, I've just handed over the equivalent of S$16 for the privilege. Still, this is Tokyo, an ancient city known for its willingness to embrace the new.

Why not follow its example, I think, as I slide into a pair of slippers and tiptoe gingerly over the threshold of Cat Cafe Calico, trying my best not to step on the Persians and Russian Blues reclining on the carpet.

In case you're wondering, a cat cafe is a place where feline-lovers who lack the time or space to keep a pet can go to sip tea and play with immaculately groomed pedigree breeds.

The softly lit room is filled with couples and teenagers, who sit idly stroking the pampered pets nestling at their feet. Others are content simply to gaze into space as the strains of The Blue Danube Waltz from 2001: A Space Odyssey drift across the room.

It's a wonderfully calming place. Yet I was not drawn here simply by the desire to relax, or even to ruffle the fur of an outrageously expensive cat.

What I really wanted was to satisfy a hunger that has been gnawing away at me ever since I turned 30. A hunger for new experiences.

Maybe it's a growing awareness of my own mortality. Even though I'm hardly at death's door, I no longer feel quite as invincible as I did when I was 25. I've started to find grey hairs, and the other day I caught myself complaining that a song sounded 'like a load of noise'.

Whatever the reason, I have a burning desire to see as much of the world as I can while I've still got the chance; before having children or looking after elderly parents make it harder to do.

Which is why moving to Singapore from Britain has definitely helped. It's the first time I've lived in Asia, so many of the little things that people here take for granted still seem delightfully fresh to me.

Whether it's watching construction workers snooze in the afternoon heat, or being hurled around the back seat of a taxi by a driver who thinks he's Michael Schumacher, each day brings something new.

Lion dances must be pretty old hat for most Singaporeans. But for me, the sight of the colourful, writhing creature coughing up oranges as the drums pound away is something I won't forget in a hurry.

Even tossing yusheng at reunion dinners remains a novelty, although after two Chinese New Years here, it's starting to wear off.

As I whip the strands of raw fish salad into the air with my clumsily held chopsticks, my wish often revolves around one thing - travel.

So far, my wife and I have made it to Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Bali and Bangkok, but Tokyo was by far the most interesting.

As our hour-long session at the cat cafe draws to a close, we swop its soothing embrace for the ordered chaos of the city's neon streets. Goths, 'Lolitas' and followers of even more outlandish subcultures pack the pavements of Shinjuku, Tokyo's self-styled 'city of the future'.

Nobody pushes or shoves. The teeming crowd moves organically, like a shoal of fish that somehow always know how to avoid colliding with one another.

We dart into a side street and see crates of seafood packed in ice, looking so fresh you can almost feel the gills flap. Scattered among them are wooden tables where customers sip beer. Time for another new experience.

The waiter brings a whole fish, barely cooked, and we attack it with chopsticks, innards and all. I've no idea what kind it is, but it tastes like spray from the sea on a sunny day, and again I'm transported from the world of flashing arcades and manga cartoons to a calmer place far, far away.

Later, we stroll through Yoyogi Park, where cosplayers dressed like 17th-century wenches from the court of Louis XIV rub shoulders with kimono-clad ladies underneath the ginkgo trees.

Then it's back to the present, and an elevator ride to the 45th floor of Tokyo City Hall, where we gaze at the metropolis laid before us like a giant circuit board. Our elderly volunteer guide, Mr Yutaka Tsuchida, points in the direction of the Fukushima plant, which went into meltdown after last March's devastating earthquake, and I can't help thinking how fragile and temporary the urban landscape really is.

Yet underneath the sparkling modernity, there's something timeless about this 500-year-old capital that seems never to grow old. I only wish I could follow in its footsteps.

The writer, from England, is a Straits Times copyeditor. He has lived in Singapore for 17 months.