Where is this?

Is it Tokyo? Is it Beijing? Is it some obscure monastery in the Japanese mountains?

No, it is Brussels. The Japanese Tower, and the Chinese Pavilion in Laken, to be precise. Both are real eye-openers - beautiful examples of pseudo-oriental buildings, merging genuine Chinese and Japanese building techniques, carvings and decorations with early twentieth-century Belgian Art Deco. The result is sometimes wierd, such as the interior of the Chinese Pavilion, where the grand (European) interior style has has an oriental layer added, or in the stained-glass (actually painted rather than stained) windows of the Japanese Tower.

The sheer opulence of both buildings shows the relatively enormous wealth of the Belgian monarchy at the time, and its ability to splash out on the fashion for 'chinoiserie'. Now, luckily, the buildings are open for all of us, and well worth a visit.