This is Tokyo, the writhing, crushing mass of people amongst whom we now live. Upon introducing friends to Toronto, I explain to them the vista seen from the CN Tower as follows: in Toronto you can hardly see the houses for the trees. As the above photograph clearly illustrates however, in Tokyo you can hardly see the trees for the buildings. The greater Tokyo area (of contiguous urban sprawl) makes up approximately 25 million inhabitants. That is equal to the population of Canada. Mel Lastman eat your heart out.
	In the above photograph, a cluster of tall buildings can be seen far on the left. That is Shinjuku. The cluster of tall buildings far on the right is Ikebukuro. These two locations are only four stops away from each other on the Yamanote subway line. The subway guide shown on the left here is a good reason why it is advisable to have "old hands" around when first travelling to Japan. Click here if you would like to see a very nice bilingual pdf file JR_lines.pdf (1.2 MB) of the JR Railway lines in Greater Tokyo.
	Here's a photograph of my neighbourhood. The neighbour below me thinks that I wear shoes in the house while I walk. He is wrong. He has complained to the housing management about the issue however. There must be some nice quiet place for him to live far, far away from other people. Tokyo would not be the place however. For other pictures of my home in the big city, visit the Kachidoki page.
It seems amazing to me that he can hear the sound of someone walking on solid concrete floors in socks but not notice tractor-trailers pound across the bridge next to the building (literally shaking the building and rattling the windows) or the communists out on the street with their bull horns every morning (really!). Such is the friendly nature of Japanese neighbourhoods however. Bring your own slippers.

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