Initial Impressions

I wrote my initial observations on Tokyo back when I arrived in July in both e-mails to my friends and family and in my journal. Here is a compilation of what I wrote:

• there is tons to see, do, and eat everywhere
• people at the train stations are in a HUGE hurry
• people are very polite
• people do not wear bright colors very often
• things are always to be efficient
• there is a lot of consumerism
• people are quite fashionable
• the food is delicious
• the toilets are cool -- flush noises, sprays, seat warming, baby holders, squat toilets, emergency buttons even. But no paper towels...
• the area where I work is cool [there is: a park with sports facilities, a library, a hospital, restaurants, large shopping mall, tons of bikes...]
  
• there are not as many foreigners as I had imagined. Despite being a huge international metropolis, Tokyo is nearly all Japanese people. Maybe I'm more surprised on this one b/c, before Tokyo, the biggest city I had been to was NYC, which is probably the largest melting pot city in the world...
• people are nervous to mess up English
• the culture seems prescribed
  
• guys seem mostly nerdy, while women seem mostly trendy
• there is a lot of walking and using escalators
  
• Tokyo is a huge city -- it sprawls as far as the eye can see from observation towers
  
• Tokyo seems pretty ugly -- cement city
• Tokyo is very clean
• Tokyo has narrow streets that are not anywhere close to being on some sort of organized grid system
  
• Tokyo is fun
  
• Tokyo is intimidating
  
• it will be very easy to spend the rest of my life's savings...