With Gusto

36 Million People Live In the Greater Tokyo Area

To never see the same person twice. I work about a thirty second walk from the train station. Train stations in Tokyo are very important. The entire community is developed around a train station. A train station is like a city, with a commercial core surrounding the station, then an outflow of smaller businesses, and eventually residential areas. Even though I work, like I said, about thirty seconds from the train station, I rarely see the students of my school. There are so many people coming and going that it's rare to see them. They maybe there, but hidden in the mob. They may see me, but duck behind some other black-haired, black-eyed local so as to avoid their teacher drinking a beer in public. So I rarely see the same person twice, even though I may see a minimum of a 100,000 people a day.
The Japanese are rather snobby about one thing. It isn't fashion. Although they technically are. But REALLY they're snobby about diet, and food. They really appreciate healthy food over here. All walks of life like their natural, healthy food. And if they go to McDonald's they go to the gym or starve themselves afterwards.
I am working on Christmas. So I'm feeling more Japanese. They work hellish hours. 10 or 13 hour days is common. They sleep on the trains and nobody steals their stuff. But working on Christmas sucks! Good thing I have a huge paid vacation starting the day after. Not exactly sure what I'm doing on Christmas, though I plan on delivering some gifts to the bar owners I frequent. The language is coming along very slowly, but I got some phrases on the go and will spend this holiday learning more alphabet and reading Japanese comic books.