When I was a kid, I had an immense fear of aliens. The idea of being abducted completely freaked me out, and I watched things like “Fire In the Sky” and The X-Files with studious horror, adamant that something like that would never happen to me. Based on my research (books about UFOs and the aforementioned visual entertainment), people tended to get abducted in quiet places with few witnesses: the woods, the suburbs, dark neighbourhoods and the like. Even at the time, my hometown of Detroit wasn’t the liveliest place in the world, and I vowed someday I’d move to a gigantic metropolis, where I could live in a high-rise apartment building surrounded by loads of people. Then, surely, the aliens wouldn’t choose to abduct little old me.

I first moved to Tokyo in 2003. By that time, it was no longer a fear of aliens that drove me to the city, but instead the fantasy of living in a Bladerunner-esque megalopolis (and someplace with decent public transport). During my six years there I fell in and out of love with many aspects of Tokyo, but I can very certainly say I never once tired of view. I used to love doing interviews or going to photo shoots around town, having the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the city from an unfamiliar angle out of someone’s office window. The Japanese countryside affords some pretty spectacular scenery, but give me the view from the top of the Park Hyatt any day.

Needless to say, when I got to London I wasn’t impressed. While I did find much of the historic architecture and “earthy vibe” I was hungry for after years of looking at prefab concrete and buildings covered in bathroom tiles, I was disappointed at how flat The Big Smoke is, and how the few high rises that do exist don’t often have public observation decks. It’s a bustling city–don’t get me wrong–but it just doesn’t have that neon-fueled glow or the endless glitter of the Tokyo skyline that makes you think someone turned the sky and the earth upside down. I missed the sense of scale and diminutive existential feeling I got while surrounded by massive monolithic structures. And I missed pondering how much life could possibly be teeming inside each building, towering high into the sky.

A few weekends ago I went to the London Ice Sculpting Festival. It turned out to be a pretty disappointing affair with only eight sculptures and a small row of refreshment tents. The afternoon would have been a wash had it not been for the fact that it was held on Canary Wharf, the land of my dreams.

Not really the land of my dreams, but oh, is it pretty. You can read all about Canary Wharf on Wikipedia if you choose, but it’s important to note that not only is it a major financial centre in London’s poorest borough, but it’s also owned and maintained by a private company and guarded over by a private security force. It’s thusly not hugely popular with many London residents, with non-political criticisms ranging from “ugly” to “soulless”.

Even so, stepping out of Canary Wharf station (and what a lovely station it is) felt like coming home to Tokyo. I could have been in the Marunouchi district or West Shinjuku, one of my favourite areas of the city to gaze at. The biru-kaze (building wind) blowing me about with its frigid tenderness, I happily explored under bridges and over walkways, through a massive underground shopping mall and into immaculately maintained parks (complete with astro turf!). Warming myself on a bench in the January sun, I could see the Square Mile in the distance, barely peeking up above the low brick buildings lining the rather bare Thames River. Had I really been in Tokyo I might have been treated to a slightly more spectacular view–exotically designed residential towers; bridges, perhaps a shrine or a temple; an ugly bilboard or two–but I was thrilled enough to find such a sanctuary that I actually went back a few nights later just to have a second look.

Unfortunately my childhood self wouldn’t have delighted so much in London’s cold vision of the future: Canary Wharf is nothing but office blocks, and at night the place is pretty dead. I don’t know how much of a deterrent Canary Wharf Group plc’s security guards are, but if I was an alien looking to go hunting in London, that might be a good place to start.