Hey guys, Greg here.
Topic, Tokyo: Small town or big city?
Now, when most people visit Tokyo, I think they think it's a pretty big city.
Like in fact, when my brother came to visit. We were on the train from Narita going in through Chiba.
And if you know Tokyo, Chiba's kind of to the East of it. And you're going into the city.
Before we even hit the proper city of Tokyo itself, he was asking me "Is this Tokyo?" and I was like "No, we haven't hit Tokyo yet.
I remember the same feeling happening to me, when I came to visit Tokyo for the first time.
My wife always said she's from a small town. And I was like "Are you crazy? Theres stuff everywhere! This is a big place!"
So at first I thought my wife was a little bit crazy. I mean Tokyo was big it's the largest metropolitan area in the world.
It has like 37 million people in the area around Tokyo. I mean that's bigger than the size of Canada.
Canada has 35 or 36 million people.
So I love electronics and I'd go visit the electronic shops. And they would have floor upon floor upon floor upon floor of stuff.
And it was like 7 or 8 stories - this big shop in Akihabara. And to me, each floor of this electronics shop was the entire size of a whole electronics shop back in Canada.
On my first visit I went up to the Tokyo Metropolitan Towers. It's like 48 stories high and when I looked out the window, it was just sea upon sea of buildings as far as your eye can see.
It was just everywhere. Just buildings.
But... I was suprised about Tokyo and the amount of people that I found within it.
I mean, when I was on the street, I just expected to be squished and just jam-packed chock full of people.
But that wasn't the case all the time and perhaps I wasn't there during the super busy times or in the right areas.
But I went to popular places like 'Shinjuku' or 'Shibuya' and I just wasn't being squished.
There was room to breathe and walk around. So I was surprised it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be.
And then I'd find shrines and they'd be one story high and they'd have a park around it, some nice kind of relaxing place.
And they'd have these giant skyscrapers on either side of it. But, even in this big city there's just a little small area.
When my opinion of Tokyo as a big city really started to change, happened when I moved here.
And I was really worried about moving here, because I thought, you know, I visited before but I have asthma and I thought...
Well you know 'Tokyo, big city, the air is just going to be horrible.' . But it actually wasn't. It's pretty good air, I think.
The only time we ever worry is when there's some PM2.5 coming over from China. Sometimes that's a bit of a worry.
But, I mean most the times the air is pretty darn good quality and I'm coming from Canada where we're known for our good air quality. So it's pretty good.
And same as the water, the water's good as well.
Yeah, it was really odd, when I first started walking around the town, people would recognize me.
And they'd say 'Hello' and I'd be like 'Ohayo gozaimasu' or 'Konichiwa'.
And I just had no clue who these people were, but they knew me.
Greg: Aiko what?
Aiko: Daddy? Greg: Ya?! Aiko: You said some people say 'Ohayo' and 'Konichiwa' right?
Greg: Ya? Aiko: That's just like, it's just good morning.
Greg: Ya, I know. Aiko: They don't know you.
Greg: Like when you ride around, right? Our area, there are people who know you right? Aiko: Well, there are people I know.
Greg: Ya! There are your friends and there are other people, too, that you've seen around so... Aiko: But in Tokyo, I mean in (cencored)?
Greg: Ya in (***). Aiko: Oh, I mean (***), well in (***).
Greg: I don't wanna say (***) on camera, but yeah. Aiko: Oh, you told me not to say (***), talking about Tokyo or something.
Greg: No I'm talking about where we live in Tokyo. Aiko: Oh, okay okay...
Greg: Yeah.. Aiko: Okay.
Now, a lot of people knew me from the schools. They've seen me drop off the kids to school and they'd know me through there.
And there aren't too many foreigners where we are, so I kind of perhaps stick out more than other people.
But it's still a small place. So I'll see kids around on the streets and there'll be friends.
And when I started thinking about it, it's not that surprising because, I looked at the map of the school area:
Within a 10-minute-radius - that's kind of the catchment area. So everyone in the school system lives within a 10-minute-walk of the school.
Adding to the school connection, the school has community events. It seems like one every about 2 months or so, where you see all the people from the neighborhood.
And even people that don't go to the school, so like some 'ojisans' or 'obasans', those are kind of like a term for the seniors,
they'll come by and visit. So a lot of people get to know each other.
And because we live in Tokyo where it's very convenient not to own a car, a lot of people walk around, they bike around.
That's how they do a lot of their shopping and that's how they get to and from work.
So when everybody's out on the streets, it's a lot easier to bump into people that you know.
What I found very interesting is that Tokyo or the area that we live in Tokyo,
it feels like a generation ago, what it felt like growing up in Winnipeg.
So when I grew up in Winnipeg the kids would just roam free around the streets and we'd go to the park and we'd stay there till night falls.
And we really would know a lot of our neighbours and people around.
And then somehow in the past 30 years or so, I haven't felt that same way about living in places in Canada.
But going back to Tokyo it's like 'Wow! I just went back 30 years.
I do know all these kids who are biking around and the kids are just free to play. Theres no parent supervision.
And it's not like parents don't watch the kids,
but it's a safe enough place where you can actually let your kids go out and you don't have to be supervising them every single minute of the day.
And because it's a small community there are people that you know.
Like, say those bike attendant 'ojisans', who are also kind of looking at the kids as well.
So you don't have that fear that we seem to have in North America of letting our kids out by themselves to go and play.
The type of small community feel that I grew up with in Canada, well I'm actually experiencing that in Tokyo. The biggest metropolitan area in the world.
So now that I think about Tokyo and I think about 'Is it a big city? Or is it it a small town?'.
I think it really is small towns in a big city. Have you been to Tokyo? And do you think it's a big city or small towns?
Also, what is it like where you're from? Do you have that small community feel still?
Do neighbours not know each other? Are your kids allowed to go and play outside freely?
Okay that's all I got for this one. Thanks for watching and I'll catch you on the flipside.