Beautiful, sad and passionate.

...there's another Hill of Tara far away - a little Irish pub of the same name that squats incongruously under a dark corner of the great and grand Kyoto Hotel. You can get a fair pint of Guinness at the Tara, but step outside and there's no grass, no smell of the land, no mystery any more, just the incessant roar of the city, bad air and a million flashing lights searching out your money. In fact, there's no greenery at all now between Tokyo and Kobe, just mile upon fast mile of hotels, cheap apartment blocks, factories and shaky skyscrapers.

It <i>can</i> get that bad if we let it.