Tokyo

I don't live in Tokyo. I don't even know whether I would like to live there. I love it and hate it-it is one of those places that you can love and hate at the same time.

In Tokyo there are always too many people in the places where I want to be. Of course there are too many cars. The Japanese drive very fast when they can, but in Tokyo they often spend a long time in traffic jams. Tokyo is not different from London, Paris and New York in.that. but It is different .when you wants to walk.

the streets near the Ginza in Tokyo always have a lot of people on foot, and sometimes it is really difficult to walk. People are very polite; there are just too many of them.

The worst time to be in the street is at 11.30 at night. That is when the night-clubs are closing and everybody wants to go home. There are 35, 000 night-clubs in Tokyo, and you do not often see one that is empty. Between 11 and 12 everybcdy is looking for a taxi. Usually the taxis are shared by four or five people who live in the same part of the city.

During the day, people use the trains. Perhaps the first thing you notice in Tokyo is the number of trains. Most people travel to and from work by train, and there is a station at almost every street corner. Tokyo people buy six mi1lion train tickets every day. One station--Shinjuku-has two million passengers each day. At most stations, trains arrive every two or three minutes, but at certain hours there do not seem eo he enough trains. At 8 o,clock in the morning you can see students pushing passeng.ers into the trains. Usually the trains are nearly full when they arrive at the station, so the students have to push very hard. Sometimes the pushers are also pushed in by mistake, and they have to get out at the next station. Some people who are pushed into the train lose their shoes. They, too, get out at the next station, and go back to look for them.

Although they are usually crowded, Japanese trains are very good. They always leave and arrive on time. On a London train you would see everybody reading a newspaper. In Tokyo trains everybody in a seat seems to be asleep. Some Japanese make a train journey of two hours to go to work, so they do their sleeping on the train. But if a train journey lasts only five minutes, and if they have a seat, they will also go to sleep. They always wake when they arrive at their station