Japan was never the primary reason for this trip – that was New Zealand – this part of our trip came from the fact that breaking our journey didn’t affect the price of our flights.

A few years ago Christine had been to a conference in Taiwan and had spent a couple of days in Hong Kong, she thought I would love to visit so we looked at making that our stop. We couldn’t do that so we chose Japan instead.

What was going to be a couple of days in Tokyo ended up being 12, allowing us to explore the country and see some wonderful things. And whilst we knew the romantic side of the country I was also keen to see the cutting edge technology which I’d always understood was a big part of Japan.

And yes, we saw heated toilet seats with built-in bidets; we were surrounded by chrips and bleeps; we ordered food from vending machines; we travelled on incredibly fast trains; and cashiers had tills that gave them the correct change. We also saw ASIMO do his stuff at the National Museum of Science and Emerging Technology.

But ASIMO is over ten years old now and the ’emerging’ technology on display wasn’t unknown and wasn’t eye-catching. A later visit around Akihabara’s ‘Electric City’ didn’t show off anything that hasn’t already been seen around the world.

Is this somewhat to do with the ubiquity of the internet? When I was younger I’d watch things like Tomorrow’s World or the Children’s BBC equivalent going off and finding the new and the innovative but now there’s any number of websites that will flag up the Next Big Thing.

Is the truth actually that Japanese companies are no longer pushing the boundaries of their fields? In the car industry Honda and Toyota continue to do interesting things but the two dominant names in consumer electronics are American and South Korean. Famous Japanese brands don’t seem to cut it anymore.

Or is it about economics? The Japanese economy is struggling – the Yen is the only major currency in the world that’s currently weaker than Sterling. Given that their technology has been built to last, and doesn’t fall prey to the wild iterations of designer brands can they no longer afford the Research and Development costs of being cutting edge? Or r are they just refocusing their efforts elsewhere?

And if so, given their track record, I’d be interested to know where.