Zhanteimi

Life in Tokyo....that's a big question, and since everything here is normal to us now, I'm not sure where to start.

Tokyo is a very safe city with regards to crime. Random violent crime is almost unheard of, unless some crazy guy drives his van into a group of people then gets out and starts stabbing people randomly.

A lot of Tokyo is not skyscrapers, though. Only the immediate areas around major train stations, like, for example, Shinjuku:



Notice how quickly smaller buildings take over. And see all those trees? Yeah, there are tons of amazing parks in Tokyo, many of them land that used to belong to daimyos and are now semi-public property (you have to pay a nominal fee to go in).

Rent is ridiculous, especially in places right around major train stations. Think Manhattan. We, of course, don't live in those areas, since we have a large family.

Street names...Tokyo is an old city with many winding back streets hardly big enough for a passenger car to go down. Those kinds of "streets" have no names, so it's almost impossible to get directions from someone by word of mouth. You've gotta look at a map or have navi on your smartphone. Only the arteries of the city have names, and yes, since the names are Japanese, they can't be a tongue-twister!

White gloves...some taxi drivers still wear them, but most don't. I think that was a thing. But you know what they do wear white gloves for?



This is why I cycle to work.

Tokyo is a great city, very interesting with lots of things to do...but the city closes down every night. The trains stop, so this encourages people to go home. Tokyo is both very modern and very traditional...and very weird! For example, these two things are right next to each other:



&



where you can see these kinds of girls every Sunday