so many people

Tokyo Day 8. Today started the rainy season and they mean it. The weekend has ended, the work week begun. I like to fashion myself an amateur anthropologist and Tokyo is rife with observation.

Tokyo is a big, crowded city. 34 million strong. But the streets are remarkably clean despite the glut of packaging and the dearth of garbage cans. The green movement has begun to be embraced with an elaborate system of waste disposal. There's burnable and non-burnable distinctions then PET recycling. Bottles need to be rinsed with caps removed, boxes broken down and tied up. Different types of garbage are collected on different days of the week. Electronics disposal requires contacting the manufacturer. There isn't much of a donation system for unwanted items. The urban culture is strongly centered around consumption of consumer goods, yet living spaces are tiny and disposal of unwanted goods expensive.

I've determined Tokyoites to be a sleep deprived people. Closed eyes and nodding heads are a common site on the subway, even for those who are standing. Many have long commutes and longer work hours. Salarymen can be identified by their black, blue or brown suit with their white or blue shirt and blue or gray tie accessorized by a soft cased briefcase. There are also their female counterparts though smaller in number. Office Ladies or OLs and housewives make up the majority of other women.

Weekends present the opportunity to break free from the drab work week. A visit to the Harajuku section of Tokyo made famous by Gwen Stefani and her tribe of Harajuku girls finds high school girls from the 'burbs in outlandish costumes. Little Bo Peeps stand next to goth girls with white tape crisscrossing their faces. They hang out on a bridge between the subway station and Yoyogi Park on Sundays waiting to be photographed. Yoyogi Park is filled with folks relaxing on the grass and walking along the pathways. There's also the rock-a-billy dancers with their pompadours and leather jackets, yo-yo aficionados, rock bands and amateur dance troupes.

Mostly the weekend is a good time to shop. Shopping areas are packed and you better keep moving lest risk getting trampled or poked in the eye by a parasol. Women teeter on 4 inch heels with perfect hair and make-up dressed in the latest fashions. Basically, I feel like an oafish slob at all times. I figure it's what's expected from me as an American anyway.