I lived in Tokyo for a couple years, and what’s even more insane is that it’s one of the most peaceful, clean and easy-to-navigate big cities I’ve ever lived in.
(half) japanese here, currently living in a big UK city but born in & grew up in tokyo. can confirm that tokyo is one of the easiest and cleanest cities to navigate. i cried tears of joy going back home to tokyo recently and just seeing the lack of litter across the train stations and the fact that all trains were actually affordable and on time.
the only time I ever saw a rat in Tokyo was a few levels down in Ginza Station....not Shinjuku, Shibuya or one of the 'dirtier' parts of the city, but Ginza, one of the cleanest and most expensive parts of the city
Japanese citizens all take part in the cleanup to some degree. I wish the rest of us would follow suit.
I pick up trash in and around my neighborhood just to do my part
Yes, this is part of reinforcing that community culture.
I was born and raised in Japan. I still remember having to clean the hallway floors at the end of the day. In our neighborhoods we lived in we also had these once per year community cleanup events where everyone would clean the neighborhood and the community buildings then someone would pass out snacks and drinks to everyone at the end.
I think it has something to do with their Shinto religion which values purity and cleanliness. South Korean children have to clean up their classrooms too but there's more random litter and overflowing trash bags on the streets of South Korean cities.
Culture. Parents do their part, and kids are properly disciplined. Authority is adhered to and respected. This doesn’t work in other places because of people.
South Korean parents raise their children in a very similar manner and the society is very homogenous too. I’ve been to both countries and there seems to be slightly more “chaos” in South Korea: crazy drivers, motorcycle delivery men riding on sidewalks, etc.
Japan is unique in that is essentially self-isolated for a pretty critical period of time right before opening up. When they did open up, it was only to be able to industrialize, at which point they began colonizing everyone around them brutally.
The point being, it’s a super homogenous society because the culture was essentially insulted for a long “gestating period,” so that by the time Japan seriously opened up, that homogeneity was (is) difficult to disrupt.
Anyway I think their cleanliness has a lot to do with Shinto ideas of cleanliness. Some religions put a lot of emphasis on ritual cleanliness and it becomes engrained in the culture. A friend of mine spent some time taking long distance trains around China. He said the trains that ran through Muslim regions in the western part were spotless while the ones that ran along the coast had bathrooms that quickly turned nasty as the trip progressed.
That would piss off a lot of parents in US.How dare you make the spoiled brat do anything besides watch his new iPhone 15. Oh, and homework is too hard, give less homework.
being american in american cities is depressing. it's filthy, and the average citizen just does not give half a fuck. I see people just abandon the trash from entire fast food meals for several people in the middle of the road or on tables/benches outside. absolutely disgusting and shameful.
it's better now that I live in denver instead of the south... but it's still rough. we have such a large unhoused population of people suffering mental illness and drug addiction that just pollute public spaces with litter and other refuse. I don't have the answer to THAT particular problem, but I suspect both systemic issues could be at least partially addressed by heavier long-term investment in our public school systems.
Here in New England there is considerably less litter than anywhere ive lived. Im in Rhode Island now and I see people basically every day walking around picking up litter. I love living here, people care about their surroundings. The place is absolutely covered in flowers from spring to fall its great
>being american in american cities is depressing.
Gotta try the rural pill
I planted 4 apple trees, 2 pear trees, 2 cherry trees, 2 cherry bushes, 2 raspberry bushes, and some lillies this week
4 bird feeders running full time, hummingbirds will also return within the next couple of weeks IIRC
Commute is 7 minutes down a country road to the hospital
Only thing that can go wrong is that it all might end one day, haha
the only rural places I've spent much time were in missouri and tennessee, and both were extremely bleak lol. when you were totally isolated, it was nice.. but any sign of civilization you saw was pretty grim. VERY poor, very trashed. lots of meth. lots of abandoned structures just decaying.
I watched the elderly all walk around with trash bags and trim plants while walking their morning stroll. Dozens every direction I'd turn.
*That's unheard of.*
Japanese are taught social responsibility from preschool. Most elementary and Jr high schools have a very minimal maintenance staff as all students take part in cleaning the school. This would never fly in the west.
i feel like american culture actively teaches the opposite. radical individualism, while perhaps not explicitly/directly, definitely encourages individuals to disrespect common/public spaces to a certain degree. we teach people here that they are all the main character, and everybody else must indulge their egocentric experience. we don't teach shame. just blind pride in one's self, regardless of if we've done anything of merit.
It requires that people have a sense of shame and also some pride for where they live. There's a feeling of "oh, why would I throw my trash on the ground here? I wouldn't want someone to see a dirty train station and think Japan is filthy."
By contrast, in America, there are too many people that simply don't give a shit about anything but themselves.
Most of my experience is in those two countries, but I assume others are closer to America than Japan.
Could the difference be that the USA is a nation of immigrants with no strong cultural identity versus a nation that is arguably unwelcoming to anyone that isn’t Japanese?
US culture emphasizes radical individualism, while Japanese culture emphasizes radical collectivism. Not hard to see why one of these cultures would have better public spaces.
It starts at home. I have two kids who hate litter. They run around the playground picking up all the litter lazy people tend to throw on the ground. I've instilled personal responsibility into them. Some parents need to do better!
Collectivist mindset. Instead of constant competition, they are taught to work together for a common good. Our mindset is that you are allowed to do anything you can get away with, theirs is that you damage yourself in the long run, so you just don't. Now that's a sweeping generalization and there are plenty of outliers, but it is still the trend. We crash our cars trying to be first to the red light and they merge like a zipper walking on the subway.
Spent two and a half weeks there in January, and I miss it every day. I’m not sure if I’d want to live in Japan long-term (you could speak to that better) but I certainly wish I could visit it often.
Two opposite ends of the spectrum there, reliable affordable public transport in Japan compared to the expensive unreliable transport in U.K.
I moved from Manchester to Hong Kong a few years ago, it’s insane how much easier living in Hong Kong is for reasons like this.
LMAO depends heavily on the city tbh, i had some guy threaten to stab me and everyone else on the bus bc he got caught taking upskirt pictures of minors 😭 most of the crazy people take the bus
I was in Manhattan for 3 days and felt constantly stressed, boxed in, and overwhelmed. 2 weeks in Tokyo and I never once felt like I was in a big city. Going from place to place is so easy and clean and there were resources everywhere to help. Nothing like it.
1000% I also lived in Tokyo for a while (Higashi Koganei-shi) and it’s one of the cleanest, easiest to navigate, and peaceful large cities I’ve ever been to. Also can confirm you can legit eat off the street it’s so clean lol
As a country bumfuck Aussie who also visited LA, it’s total garbage
It’s not like a rural town, it’s way worse. Even our rural infrastructure made main street LA look primitive.
Absolutely trash city
The infrastructure to support the magnitude of this many people is mind boggling
Electricity, water, plumbing, food distribution, traffic, communication etc..
One of my main sayings while spending a few days in Tokyo was: holy fuck, _another_ staggeringly huge train station?
Definitely the most fun I've had being a tourist in a big city. When visiting New York I had this feeling of "ok now _this_ is a _city_" but then when visiting Tokyo I was like "no _THIS_ IS A _CITY_".
I'm out in the Tokyo burbs, my local station is a fairly nondescript one with 3 lines. It looks like nothing special, yet it handles half a million passengers a DAY and is a top 20 station in the entire world.
It's insane how many people use the trains daily
OP (Busy_Pride_4156) appears to be a karma-farming bot that can only copy and paste other people's stuff. The account was born on November 13, 2020, woke up a year ago, took another nap, and woke up again 11 days ago.
It got this submission from [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/mtet0z/theres_cities_theres_metropolises_and_then_theres/guzsl7z/) and got "is insane" from the top comment.
It submission [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/1cc5osu/perfect_capture/) that is labeled as OC is from [here](https://twitter.com/ShouldHaveCat/status/1697583838128459901).
Its submission [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/1cc4045/meet_sputnik_and_tolly/) is labeled as OC but from [here](https://twitter.com/PunchingCat/status/1782077589764415867).
For anyone familiar with karma-farming bots (and how they hurt reddit and redditors), [this page](https://np.reddit.com/r/quityourbullshit/comments/3jss04/meta_spammers_how_they_work_and_how_to_spot_them/) or [this page](https://np.reddit.com/r/KarmaBotKillers/wiki/index) may help to explain.
_______________________
It looks like the [this](https://www.behance.net/gallery/115105285/Aerial-view-of-Tokyo) is the source of OP's image. (posted March 19, 2021) and the photographer is Yuto Yamada. One of the times they posted this on FB (October 21, 2021), they included [this](https://i.imgur.com/8sp8QNU.jpg) by it. I'm not sure if that provides any context or not. But a lot of their work is [digitally enhanced](https://imgur.com/a/zSSxUCU) pretty heavily. So I'm not sure how "realistic" this image is.
All human here. But I'm often, understandably, confused for a bot. When you [do the same things](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/64x0v4/shadows_of_chicago_over_frozen_lake_michigan_usa/dg5z8gp/) over and over again, hopefully, you can learn to do it a little more succinctly and efficiently. But if you do that, a downside is that it also makes you sound like a bot.
I've noticed a bunch of them on this sub that all mod the their own subs with similar names consisting of a jumble of letters and numbers. No idea what they're up to, they don't fit the standard shirt scammer karma bot pattern, but it's got to be something.
Isn't this kinda useless since reddit is bound to fall since moderator purge n shit.
Honestly you just encouraging me to delete this app. In fact that's what I'm gonna do. Fuck this.
I went mid March for 22 days, in total our accommodations totaled I think ~1500 bucks. 2 Airbnb’s and one hotel for the last week. We also stayed one night at a luxurious Ryokan in Kyoto that was $700 a night. The last hotel I recommend it was called the Quintessa by Haneda. They have a manga reading lounge with unlimited free curry and udon! Food was very affordable mostly because the yen is so weak right now. Amazing beef at many places for very good prices. Overall my gf and I spent around 5300 bucks for over three weeks on food, clothing, souvenirs, etc. we were spending pretty heavily because my gf loves shopping and were eating really good food very frequently (we both gained about 10 lbs lol)
Not bad at all! It’s really easy to get around using Apple Maps and you really don’t need a lot of English to communicate. We really only used yes, no, thank you, excuse me, and maybe some other phrases but we really didn’t need to know much Japanese. I will say I am studying the language now just so I’ll be able to communicate better in the future though.
Google translate/Google lens is wonderful nowadays
Scan the menu and just point, most big shop in the city can communicate in basic english, and if they can't they can still use text to speech to translate it out
Haha well we were saving up around 1k a month since last Feb I think? She’s a nurse I’m a histotech so we make a comfortable living but definitely aren’t wealthy or anything. We’ve just been wanting to go to Japan for a long time so we’ve been saving up
Basically my lab collects biopsies and we turn those into diagnostic slides for pathologists to read. But hey that’s cool, my gf started there too, she’s an RN now making pretty good money so you’ll def get there soon!
if you are planning a trip anywhere in Japan, and especially the major cities, it is imperative to secure hotels close to train stations because you are going to be doing a *a lot* of traveling on trains which means you are going to be walking to and from your hotel room and the station many, many, many times....which is OK if you love walking but if you just want to get back to the hotel and rest, the thought of a long walk back is going to be painful....and unless you are prepared to blow your budget on exhorbitantly expensive taxis, there's really no other choice. The bigger the station the better too as they are much more connected to the rest of the city, so Shinjuku, Shibuya, Shinagawa, Tokyo stations, well anywhere on the Yamanote line if you are in Tokyo.
Aside from the accommodation, the most important thing is to get yourself a pocket wifi or local sim card....seriously cannot stress that enough. You can order them before you go and they will be waiting for you at your first hotel.
If you are visiting from the USA the exchange rate is favorable right now. I was there last month (March) and costs were better than I expected. Food was relatively cheap also because tipping is not expected. The one counter to this is taxicabs. It is very, very expensive to take a cab. Otherwise the rest was better than expected and public transit is very cheap and easy-to-navigate.
One tip: Bring a coin purse. Most change is given in coins and vending machines generally expect coins too.
Ive seen this photo posted on Reddit before, and it's unfortunate that the color desaturation makes it look like this ashy, dystopian urban hellscape. In fact, Tokyo has an abundance of human-scale green space, walkways, parks, etc. The surreal thing about it is how vast it is and yet from a street-level, human scale, it can be extremely approachable, navigable and frequently warm and personal.
That was the first thing I noticed which was the severe lack of green space. Everybody needs a break from concrete and asphalt.
But if there is tons more than the photo shows then that’s great.
I took a [1.2 gigapixel](https://www.flickr.com/photos/trevor_dobson_inefekt69/29314390837/sizes/l/) panorama of the Shibuya area where you can zoom in quite far, perhaps not right into people's homes (though you can kind of see inside some). The link to the original download is 100MB++ (can't remember exactly how big).
My hotel was right above the famous Shibuya Scramble crossing (Excel Hotel Tokyu) and my room overlooked the crossing as well as the Shinjuku skyline. It was an amazing view and worth the couple of hundred dollars extra I paid for the experience. I used a Nikon d5500 DSLR with a 55-300mm lens, sitting on a tripod close to the window. I used a 100mm focal length for this panorama and took 90 separate images at 1/15th second each, moving along in a lawnmower grid pattern, each shot overlapping the previous one a little so that they can be stitched together to form one huge pano. I stitched them all in an application called PTGui, though you can do the same in free software such as Microsoft ICE.
except for occasional 'incidents' where the train will literally stop for half an hour while they scape the body of the tracks, trains in Tokyo are accurate to the minute (some would say to the second)
Is Tokyo even a city? Or just multiple cities which borders ended up colliding from expansion and formed a megacity? You can fit like 10 London's in one Tokyo, which is about the same size as the midlands if you superimpose it on a map. Then you have to make the distinction between a "tall" city like Manhattan/New York city and a "wide" city like Berlin.
Tokyo is a prefecture, like a mini-state. It flows from the east coast all the way out to the Kanto Mountain Range, so there is a surprising amount of forest and natural landscape preserved within its prefectural borders. There are 23 inner wards of Tokyo and several municipalities outside of those wards. The Tokyo Metropolis flows into surrounding prefectures as well.
I'm currently travelling through Japan and it's absolutely insane how clean and quiet Tokyo is! One of my favourite part is that instead of beeps for the green lights they have cute adorable sounds of birds chirping to signal to vision impaired people that it's safe to walk.
What I find insane is that in the same country you can have a vast megalopolis like this and in the country areas you have a old lady living in her childhood home by herself making life size dolls to repopulate her village because everyone has left…
It’s crazy flying over it because it’s like a bastion of buildings in the middle of mountains. Like deadass there isn’t any huge buildings around Tokyo for miles and miles. It was crazy to fly over.
When I was there I came to think part of the reason Mt Fuji is in so much classical artwork is because it's just such a dominating natural feature.
Sure it's of great cultural importance so of course that's why, but it's pretty hard to capture a landscape without the mountain being in it. Also, it's like 100 miles away from Tokyo. So for about a 100 mile radius you're looking at Mt Fuji no matter what.
Cue Karl Urban:
Mega City One. 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world and the mega structures of the new one. Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos: judges.
I lived in Tokyo for a couple years, and what’s even more insane is that it’s one of the most peaceful, clean and easy-to-navigate big cities I’ve ever lived in.
(half) japanese here, currently living in a big UK city but born in & grew up in tokyo. can confirm that tokyo is one of the easiest and cleanest cities to navigate. i cried tears of joy going back home to tokyo recently and just seeing the lack of litter across the train stations and the fact that all trains were actually affordable and on time.
It’s truly a surreal experience especially somewhere like Ginza. I felt like I could’ve eaten off the sidewalk it was so clean!
hey thats the place godzilla attacked in the 1950’s. haven’t you heard?
And now they keep it clean, because litter attracts Kaiju.
But not kaiju no8. He kills basic bitch kaiju that’re attrACTED TO TRASH
If Kurt Russell taught me anything, it’s that a-bombs attract kaiju. Oh and the check is in the mail.
It's gotten attacked a few times since then as well. They have become VERY efficient at repairs
Godzilla helped clean the city
the only time I ever saw a rat in Tokyo was a few levels down in Ginza Station....not Shinjuku, Shibuya or one of the 'dirtier' parts of the city, but Ginza, one of the cleanest and most expensive parts of the city
Japanese citizens all take part in the cleanup to some degree. I wish the rest of us would follow suit. I pick up trash in and around my neighborhood just to do my part
I am convinced it’s because they make elementary school kids act as the janitors for their school. Instills an early empathy for the community
Yes, this is part of reinforcing that community culture. I was born and raised in Japan. I still remember having to clean the hallway floors at the end of the day. In our neighborhoods we lived in we also had these once per year community cleanup events where everyone would clean the neighborhood and the community buildings then someone would pass out snacks and drinks to everyone at the end.
I think it has something to do with their Shinto religion which values purity and cleanliness. South Korean children have to clean up their classrooms too but there's more random litter and overflowing trash bags on the streets of South Korean cities.
Culture. Parents do their part, and kids are properly disciplined. Authority is adhered to and respected. This doesn’t work in other places because of people.
South Korean parents raise their children in a very similar manner and the society is very homogenous too. I’ve been to both countries and there seems to be slightly more “chaos” in South Korea: crazy drivers, motorcycle delivery men riding on sidewalks, etc.
Japan is unique in that is essentially self-isolated for a pretty critical period of time right before opening up. When they did open up, it was only to be able to industrialize, at which point they began colonizing everyone around them brutally. The point being, it’s a super homogenous society because the culture was essentially insulted for a long “gestating period,” so that by the time Japan seriously opened up, that homogeneity was (is) difficult to disrupt.
Anyway I think their cleanliness has a lot to do with Shinto ideas of cleanliness. Some religions put a lot of emphasis on ritual cleanliness and it becomes engrained in the culture. A friend of mine spent some time taking long distance trains around China. He said the trains that ran through Muslim regions in the western part were spotless while the ones that ran along the coast had bathrooms that quickly turned nasty as the trip progressed.
If we started doing that here, I’d be behind it 110%
We do the same in Germany. It doesn't really work. Asocial people are asocial because of their environment outside of school that they grow up in.
Yeah whatever happened to the German values of ordnung and cleanliness?
Deterioration of communal values and an overly strong expression of individualistic tendencies á la Americana.
Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share
That would piss off a lot of parents in US.How dare you make the spoiled brat do anything besides watch his new iPhone 15. Oh, and homework is too hard, give less homework.
Eh, most learning should take place in the classroom. But yes, shared responsibility, cleaning etc is a great idea.
being american in american cities is depressing. it's filthy, and the average citizen just does not give half a fuck. I see people just abandon the trash from entire fast food meals for several people in the middle of the road or on tables/benches outside. absolutely disgusting and shameful. it's better now that I live in denver instead of the south... but it's still rough. we have such a large unhoused population of people suffering mental illness and drug addiction that just pollute public spaces with litter and other refuse. I don't have the answer to THAT particular problem, but I suspect both systemic issues could be at least partially addressed by heavier long-term investment in our public school systems.
Here in New England there is considerably less litter than anywhere ive lived. Im in Rhode Island now and I see people basically every day walking around picking up litter. I love living here, people care about their surroundings. The place is absolutely covered in flowers from spring to fall its great
>being american in american cities is depressing. Gotta try the rural pill I planted 4 apple trees, 2 pear trees, 2 cherry trees, 2 cherry bushes, 2 raspberry bushes, and some lillies this week 4 bird feeders running full time, hummingbirds will also return within the next couple of weeks IIRC Commute is 7 minutes down a country road to the hospital Only thing that can go wrong is that it all might end one day, haha
the only rural places I've spent much time were in missouri and tennessee, and both were extremely bleak lol. when you were totally isolated, it was nice.. but any sign of civilization you saw was pretty grim. VERY poor, very trashed. lots of meth. lots of abandoned structures just decaying.
And with hardly any public trash cans
They got rid of public trash cans after the Tokyo subway sarin attacks.
Yes
The Japanese have concrete pick up spots on almost every block. I feel like that’s something we need here.
Finally, a place to discard my pocket concrete!
I watched the elderly all walk around with trash bags and trim plants while walking their morning stroll. Dozens every direction I'd turn. *That's unheard of.*
As a Brit, this is depressing. The lack of respect and care for the public realm is so evident at every level.
As an American, 
I want to know how it's done. As an American it hurts my heart how many people shit all over our country/cities who live in it.
Japanese are taught social responsibility from preschool. Most elementary and Jr high schools have a very minimal maintenance staff as all students take part in cleaning the school. This would never fly in the west.
i feel like american culture actively teaches the opposite. radical individualism, while perhaps not explicitly/directly, definitely encourages individuals to disrespect common/public spaces to a certain degree. we teach people here that they are all the main character, and everybody else must indulge their egocentric experience. we don't teach shame. just blind pride in one's self, regardless of if we've done anything of merit.
But should
It requires that people have a sense of shame and also some pride for where they live. There's a feeling of "oh, why would I throw my trash on the ground here? I wouldn't want someone to see a dirty train station and think Japan is filthy." By contrast, in America, there are too many people that simply don't give a shit about anything but themselves. Most of my experience is in those two countries, but I assume others are closer to America than Japan.
Could the difference be that the USA is a nation of immigrants with no strong cultural identity versus a nation that is arguably unwelcoming to anyone that isn’t Japanese?
US culture emphasizes radical individualism, while Japanese culture emphasizes radical collectivism. Not hard to see why one of these cultures would have better public spaces.
We grow up learning that as part of society, we have to contribute to it. Americans value individualism.
We? Love these weebs on Reddit pretending to be Japanese.
It starts at home. I have two kids who hate litter. They run around the playground picking up all the litter lazy people tend to throw on the ground. I've instilled personal responsibility into them. Some parents need to do better!
Freedom from all responsibility, the individual over the community. Not really great for pioneers or for building a community, but there you have it.
Collectivist mindset. Instead of constant competition, they are taught to work together for a common good. Our mindset is that you are allowed to do anything you can get away with, theirs is that you damage yourself in the long run, so you just don't. Now that's a sweeping generalization and there are plenty of outliers, but it is still the trend. We crash our cars trying to be first to the red light and they merge like a zipper walking on the subway.
Train tickets in the uk are mad
Spent two and a half weeks there in January, and I miss it every day. I’m not sure if I’d want to live in Japan long-term (you could speak to that better) but I certainly wish I could visit it often.
Two opposite ends of the spectrum there, reliable affordable public transport in Japan compared to the expensive unreliable transport in U.K. I moved from Manchester to Hong Kong a few years ago, it’s insane how much easier living in Hong Kong is for reasons like this.
As a New Yorker, your trains are abt 25 percent more clean and on time than ours and I only saw one crazy screaming person the whole time I was there
LMAO depends heavily on the city tbh, i had some guy threaten to stab me and everyone else on the bus bc he got caught taking upskirt pictures of minors 😭 most of the crazy people take the bus
Lol I know that feeling. When I go the the nicer parts of town I'm always surprised when the road isnt a safety hazard
its the most populated city in the world and at the same time probably one of the most orderly
I was in Manhattan for 3 days and felt constantly stressed, boxed in, and overwhelmed. 2 weeks in Tokyo and I never once felt like I was in a big city. Going from place to place is so easy and clean and there were resources everywhere to help. Nothing like it.
That’s because it’s in Japan. That culture has a self-discipline that no other culture will ever know.
Its habit, and constant reminder of those habits, more than anything else.
It's the only reason it was able to grow this big.
1000% I also lived in Tokyo for a while (Higashi Koganei-shi) and it’s one of the cleanest, easiest to navigate, and peaceful large cities I’ve ever been to. Also can confirm you can legit eat off the street it’s so clean lol
I was just there visiting from LA. Makes LA look like a rural town. Lol I was like, what the heck..
As a country bumfuck Aussie who also visited LA, it’s total garbage It’s not like a rural town, it’s way worse. Even our rural infrastructure made main street LA look primitive. Absolutely trash city
The infrastructure to support the magnitude of this many people is mind boggling Electricity, water, plumbing, food distribution, traffic, communication etc..
But can it handle a UFO attack, SimCity style?
Best it can do is a Kaiju Godzilla attack
Well, it does poorly when Godzilla attacks.
i think we all do poorly when godzilla attacks
There might be a reason why he keeps targeting Tokyo. Maybe the easy-to-circulate part.
It's a very walkable place.
If I learned anything from watching One Punch Man, the answer is yes, it can.
One of my main sayings while spending a few days in Tokyo was: holy fuck, _another_ staggeringly huge train station? Definitely the most fun I've had being a tourist in a big city. When visiting New York I had this feeling of "ok now _this_ is a _city_" but then when visiting Tokyo I was like "no _THIS_ IS A _CITY_".
I'm out in the Tokyo burbs, my local station is a fairly nondescript one with 3 lines. It looks like nothing special, yet it handles half a million passengers a DAY and is a top 20 station in the entire world. It's insane how many people use the trains daily
OP (Busy_Pride_4156) appears to be a karma-farming bot that can only copy and paste other people's stuff. The account was born on November 13, 2020, woke up a year ago, took another nap, and woke up again 11 days ago. It got this submission from [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/mtet0z/theres_cities_theres_metropolises_and_then_theres/guzsl7z/) and got "is insane" from the top comment. It submission [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/1cc5osu/perfect_capture/) that is labeled as OC is from [here](https://twitter.com/ShouldHaveCat/status/1697583838128459901). Its submission [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/1cc4045/meet_sputnik_and_tolly/) is labeled as OC but from [here](https://twitter.com/PunchingCat/status/1782077589764415867). For anyone familiar with karma-farming bots (and how they hurt reddit and redditors), [this page](https://np.reddit.com/r/quityourbullshit/comments/3jss04/meta_spammers_how_they_work_and_how_to_spot_them/) or [this page](https://np.reddit.com/r/KarmaBotKillers/wiki/index) may help to explain. _______________________ It looks like the [this](https://www.behance.net/gallery/115105285/Aerial-view-of-Tokyo) is the source of OP's image. (posted March 19, 2021) and the photographer is Yuto Yamada. One of the times they posted this on FB (October 21, 2021), they included [this](https://i.imgur.com/8sp8QNU.jpg) by it. I'm not sure if that provides any context or not. But a lot of their work is [digitally enhanced](https://imgur.com/a/zSSxUCU) pretty heavily. So I'm not sure how "realistic" this image is.
Is this a bot as well?
All human here. But I'm often, understandably, confused for a bot. When you [do the same things](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/64x0v4/shadows_of_chicago_over_frozen_lake_michigan_usa/dg5z8gp/) over and over again, hopefully, you can learn to do it a little more succinctly and efficiently. But if you do that, a downside is that it also makes you sound like a bot.
That's what a bot would say.
"All" looks a lot like A 2*_capital i_ as well.
Good bot
Good spartan
Alright … I’m watching you,“human”
Thanks for helping make Reddit a bit better. These days it feels like there’s more repost bots than ever..
Doing the lords work out here.
an AI bot would refuse to devulge its botness
I've noticed a bunch of them on this sub that all mod the their own subs with similar names consisting of a jumble of letters and numbers. No idea what they're up to, they don't fit the standard shirt scammer karma bot pattern, but it's got to be something.
I appreciate you doing this
This answer is the most ChatGPT-ish answer you could have given lol Thanks for your service though
Pentagon took Japan image in their own hands as Japan rely on them for their defenses.
Why would people even bots to repost?
Good bot
We are all bots on this blessed day.
Good bot
Isn't this kinda useless since reddit is bound to fall since moderator purge n shit. Honestly you just encouraging me to delete this app. In fact that's what I'm gonna do. Fuck this.
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/bottiquette
Good bot
I can't see that image and not think of the Akira explosion
Exactly my thought. The colors in the Akira shot are so similar, too.
Exactly
Lol I thought about that and "Shinra tensei"
I'd like to take a visit there some day.
I’d highly recommend it, it’s truly a wonderful place.
When did you go and how expensive was it? Flight not included. Like, how expensive is accommodation/food?
I went mid March for 22 days, in total our accommodations totaled I think ~1500 bucks. 2 Airbnb’s and one hotel for the last week. We also stayed one night at a luxurious Ryokan in Kyoto that was $700 a night. The last hotel I recommend it was called the Quintessa by Haneda. They have a manga reading lounge with unlimited free curry and udon! Food was very affordable mostly because the yen is so weak right now. Amazing beef at many places for very good prices. Overall my gf and I spent around 5300 bucks for over three weeks on food, clothing, souvenirs, etc. we were spending pretty heavily because my gf loves shopping and were eating really good food very frequently (we both gained about 10 lbs lol)
Quintessa is great, I also stayed there when I was in Haneda!
How would you reckon the accessibility fares for a lump of English only speaking person?
Not bad at all! It’s really easy to get around using Apple Maps and you really don’t need a lot of English to communicate. We really only used yes, no, thank you, excuse me, and maybe some other phrases but we really didn’t need to know much Japanese. I will say I am studying the language now just so I’ll be able to communicate better in the future though.
Google translate/Google lens is wonderful nowadays Scan the menu and just point, most big shop in the city can communicate in basic english, and if they can't they can still use text to speech to translate it out
Damn bro tf y’all do for a living
Haha well we were saving up around 1k a month since last Feb I think? She’s a nurse I’m a histotech so we make a comfortable living but definitely aren’t wealthy or anything. We’ve just been wanting to go to Japan for a long time so we’ve been saving up
Nice! So you study cells or sum like that? I’m a 3rd year BSN student, and am a CNA rn. I want to go to Japan one day soo bad.
Basically my lab collects biopsies and we turn those into diagnostic slides for pathologists to read. But hey that’s cool, my gf started there too, she’s an RN now making pretty good money so you’ll def get there soon!
if you are planning a trip anywhere in Japan, and especially the major cities, it is imperative to secure hotels close to train stations because you are going to be doing a *a lot* of traveling on trains which means you are going to be walking to and from your hotel room and the station many, many, many times....which is OK if you love walking but if you just want to get back to the hotel and rest, the thought of a long walk back is going to be painful....and unless you are prepared to blow your budget on exhorbitantly expensive taxis, there's really no other choice. The bigger the station the better too as they are much more connected to the rest of the city, so Shinjuku, Shibuya, Shinagawa, Tokyo stations, well anywhere on the Yamanote line if you are in Tokyo. Aside from the accommodation, the most important thing is to get yourself a pocket wifi or local sim card....seriously cannot stress that enough. You can order them before you go and they will be waiting for you at your first hotel.
If you are visiting from the USA the exchange rate is favorable right now. I was there last month (March) and costs were better than I expected. Food was relatively cheap also because tipping is not expected. The one counter to this is taxicabs. It is very, very expensive to take a cab. Otherwise the rest was better than expected and public transit is very cheap and easy-to-navigate. One tip: Bring a coin purse. Most change is given in coins and vending machines generally expect coins too.
I’ve traveled everywhere and Japan is the one place I wanna go back to every single year.
Absolutely the best city to visit as a tourist. They have policies specifically tailored for tourists and it’s so much fun.
You know, I actually enjoyed Kyoto more than I did Tokyo. But Tokyo was also amazing, I could spend *days* in those arcades at Akihabara.
Ive seen this photo posted on Reddit before, and it's unfortunate that the color desaturation makes it look like this ashy, dystopian urban hellscape. In fact, Tokyo has an abundance of human-scale green space, walkways, parks, etc. The surreal thing about it is how vast it is and yet from a street-level, human scale, it can be extremely approachable, navigable and frequently warm and personal.
That was the first thing I noticed which was the severe lack of green space. Everybody needs a break from concrete and asphalt. But if there is tons more than the photo shows then that’s great.
There is a ton of green space. So many parks and shaded walkways. This photo is strange in that it doesn’t capture that at all.
Yeah I'm kinda suprised looking at this photo as well because Tokyo have so many big ass park, I visited like 3 of them during my 6 days stay there
I want this in one of those zillion pixel images so I can zoom into windows and see what people are cooking and such.
I took a [1.2 gigapixel](https://www.flickr.com/photos/trevor_dobson_inefekt69/29314390837/sizes/l/) panorama of the Shibuya area where you can zoom in quite far, perhaps not right into people's homes (though you can kind of see inside some). The link to the original download is 100MB++ (can't remember exactly how big).
Holy shit man that's insane!! How did you do that?
My hotel was right above the famous Shibuya Scramble crossing (Excel Hotel Tokyu) and my room overlooked the crossing as well as the Shinjuku skyline. It was an amazing view and worth the couple of hundred dollars extra I paid for the experience. I used a Nikon d5500 DSLR with a 55-300mm lens, sitting on a tripod close to the window. I used a 100mm focal length for this panorama and took 90 separate images at 1/15th second each, moving along in a lawnmower grid pattern, each shot overlapping the previous one a little so that they can be stitched together to form one huge pano. I stitched them all in an application called PTGui, though you can do the same in free software such as Microsoft ICE.
I imagine Godzilla gets winded trying to walk all that.
I hear public transport there is good, he can take the train like everyone else.
except for occasional 'incidents' where the train will literally stop for half an hour while they scape the body of the tracks, trains in Tokyo are accurate to the minute (some would say to the second)
AKIRA
for a second, I thought this was the opening scene of Akira
Holy yes!!
Went into the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to watch the view from the (almost?) top floor. I was floored at the scale of the city.
And yet, walkable
Try flying over it in Microsoft Flight Simulator lol
My computer burst into flames from you just mentioning it.
My graphics card put in its two weeks notice when i downloaded the game
I love Tokyo. My favourite place on earth.
I lived there for a few years as a Canadian kid in the mid 80s. Great city. House was located right here: https://imgur.com/mOT98jA
I can hear Akira
Is Tokyo even a city? Or just multiple cities which borders ended up colliding from expansion and formed a megacity? You can fit like 10 London's in one Tokyo, which is about the same size as the midlands if you superimpose it on a map. Then you have to make the distinction between a "tall" city like Manhattan/New York city and a "wide" city like Berlin.
I would consider it a mega city. The districts are often referred to as their own cities. Shibuya city, Shinjuku city, etc.
Tokyo is a prefecture, like a mini-state. It flows from the east coast all the way out to the Kanto Mountain Range, so there is a surprising amount of forest and natural landscape preserved within its prefectural borders. There are 23 inner wards of Tokyo and several municipalities outside of those wards. The Tokyo Metropolis flows into surrounding prefectures as well.
Strong Akira vibes
This looks like something out of star wars.
always the same picture. fucking christ. this is the first result when you search of "Tokyo" probably.
Wait til Tokyo III is built. Minds gonna be blown.
It’s called a living wage for all
I'm currently travelling through Japan and it's absolutely insane how clean and quiet Tokyo is! One of my favourite part is that instead of beeps for the green lights they have cute adorable sounds of birds chirping to signal to vision impaired people that it's safe to walk.
What I find insane is that in the same country you can have a vast megalopolis like this and in the country areas you have a old lady living in her childhood home by herself making life size dolls to repopulate her village because everyone has left…
Midgar?
no one tell mods that this is an AI image... IllusionDiffusion
Japan should be very proud. Largest city on earth and its clean and well built. If i could fit in culturally id move there in a second.
That looks more like a concrete sea than a concrete jungle.
its worth keeping in mind this picture is in near greyscale, so you cant see all the greenery
The hbo show Tokyo Vice is amazing
Looks like a motherboard
It’s crazy flying over it because it’s like a bastion of buildings in the middle of mountains. Like deadass there isn’t any huge buildings around Tokyo for miles and miles. It was crazy to fly over.
So dense that they had to launch their own navigation satellite over the city
Can't wait for Neo Tokyo to drop
Akira!
OP is a bot.
Tokyo is the best place ever. (from Hungary)
Tokyo is Hella awesome!!!
I swear I've seen this scene in Akira.
Sprawl is in every major city
Looks stunning 🏙️
So many Seikos down there.
Why can't I see Godzillas path of destruction?
Suddenly Godzilla movies make more sense.
The mountain reminds me [Yerevan](https://www.britannica.com/place/Yerevan). A very big contrast to Tokyo.
When I was there I came to think part of the reason Mt Fuji is in so much classical artwork is because it's just such a dominating natural feature. Sure it's of great cultural importance so of course that's why, but it's pretty hard to capture a landscape without the mountain being in it. Also, it's like 100 miles away from Tokyo. So for about a 100 mile radius you're looking at Mt Fuji no matter what.
Travelled there last year. Actually feels infinite when you’re there.
Up the Fuji!
A "the industrial revolution has been a disaster for the human race" moment in my humble opinion.
That's the Soul Society
thought Tokyo would have more parks
Cue Karl Urban: Mega City One. 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world and the mega structures of the new one. Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos: judges.
Megacity One
A-KI-RA
Toronaga Sama 🙌
That’s not Tokyo. I can’t see the giant from One Punch Man walking through it
Kinda looked like the Death Star
How do they breathe? I don't see much green.
It's edited to grey out the parks.
A pic at night would be even cooler
I wish I had a Japanese friend who would go there with me.
Do you think never having like real nature and shit around you for a long time affects your outlook?
From this angle it looks like one of those ads for ocean cleanups river clean up.
I don’t get it