Living in Japan (Daniel)
This is where I live in America:
The center house is where I live in Japan:
It's almost as though someone took my American house and flipped it on its side, and then shoved it in between two more flipped-over houses, and then added ten more houses in front of it.
This is the norm in Tokyo. Japan has limited space because it is an island nation. To make things worse, around 70% of that space is uninhabitable due to mountains and forest. The result is extremely high population densities within cities - especially Tokyo.
View of Tokyo from my house:
Flipped-over houses are all over the place and people are literally living on top of each other.
Tokyo congestion can be experienced first-hand when riding the metro during rush-hour. I think Japan is the only nation with "subway-pushers", whose job is to push people into trains because the doors won't close otherwise.
Because space is so limited, everything is much smaller in Japan. You'd think that being such a big and burly Slavic man, I would feel uncomfortable here. But, honestly, I enjoy it. In America, where there's lots of space, people tend to keep their distance. Only friends get close and personal. In Japan, everyone always gets close and personal because they have no choice. It makes me feel like I have lots and lots friends.
The lack of space in Japan has resulted some interesting creativity.
This is my room before bedtime:
This is my room at bedtime:
All I have to do is lay a futon out on the floor and sleep on it. When I awake, I just roll it up and put it in the closet. Pretty neat.
Lastly, here's the view of Tokyo from my room:
Hello neighbors. I think we will get to know each other very very well.
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