Tokyo, from the upper floors of towers and high rises, looks impossibly huge, all gleaming steel and glass, all business. Buildings for miles into the distance.
On the ground, it’s just people. Each neighborhood its own village. The corner market, local dry cleaners, tucked away flower shops, side of the street niches with ever-protective jizus, neighborhood shrines and temples, a department store or shopping street within walking distance. Perhaps a person ventures a few miles to another Tokyo locale for work or downtown to visit a government office. Maybe a monthly trip to the Costco warehouse.
As long as we stayed away from the big tourist draws, the streets were quiet, deserted even. We wondered where the residents were.
The point is, I am supposing that on the ground, you can forget about Tokyo’s massiveness. You just live in a village surrounded by other villages. What does it really mean to live in the biggest city on earth?