My impressions of Tokyo

Tokyo was my first stop on my exploration of Japan. Ideally I would have loved to have seeing a lot more sights and explored more but the reality is that the first few days I was a little tentative because I needed to get used to their transportation system, the food, the culture and just feel at ease. Tokyo got my feet wet. I now feel more comfortable in the water. But I did explore enough to get a sense of the city. Tokyo has about 12.5 million people in 840 square miles. So there are a lot of people. In a lot of ways I can feel the western influence in Tokyo. There are Mcdonalds, 7-elevens, pizza huts, and tully’s coffee. Many of the people in Tokyo speak English. With 12.5 million people I am surprised how easy it was to get around once I felt comfortable navigating through the subway system. I also was surprised by how welcoming everyone is when I walk into the store. I don’t know what they said but there was always a greeting. Also, they always bow when you leave and exit. Actually, at 7 eleven is where they gave me the deepest bows. They would hand me the receipt with both hands and bow deeply.

Tokyo is huge and initially is very overwhelming. But after a while I felt comfortable here. There are reminiscences of other major cities with good transit systems. With a city this congested it is impossible to prevent unknown scents from being developed which in some cases would sneak up on me while walking. There is a mass of shopping options in Tokyo. Pretty much anything and everything can be found there.

After being in New York a few times I was expecting Tokyo to be dirtier then it was. Don’t mistake me. Tokyo is not what I would call a clean city. But it is surprisingly well kept considering the mass of people. I will return to Tokyo on July 31 and plan to travel around the city much more extensively now that I feel more comfortable with their transit system. I will update these impressions then.