“I’m on top of the world” !!! 60 floors up

When I first arrived in Tokyo I was very excited about viewing the city, its structure of buildings, and the lighting at night. The first official meeting we had gave me a perfect view of the city.
We all gathered on the 60th floor of our hotel known as the “observation deck” where we were able to view the entire city from one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. “This is the most massive and busiest cities I have ever witnessed” was my first thought and I instantly became intrigued by the facts about the structure of the city given to us by Dr. Londo. The city looks like about 5 of the major US cities all on one massive landmass, to paint a picture in your head.
Tokyo alone currently holds approximately 12 million citizens. With that many people wonder, “how do they fit that many people in one city?”, well its done in Tokyo and very efficient. There are hundreds of skyscrapers located all throughout the city, residential housing, and business operations. From the observation deck everything looked close together with not much space for travel. But the innovated people of Tokyo have developed a very effective transportation system. Expressways wrap all around and throughout area, but to save space the infrastructure of these roads are elevated above ground saving miles of space.
Another view of the city that stood out to us all was the abundant amount of railroads moving through the city. Tokyo has one of the busiest subway/train systems in the world. Subways are the main source of transportation for the common citizen. When you enter these train stations it is packed with people moving with a purpose, moving at a fast past, and usually moving around to handle business, whether its work, school, shopping, eating, or just out to have fun. I found it very innovated that majority of these train stations have shopping centers located throughout them. These shopping centers are owned by the railroad companies, bringing in millions of dollars to their corporation. It makes it very convenient for the Japanese citizen to have access to these goods (i.e. groceries, clothing, fresh foods) while they travel home from work.
Keeping their city clean is a major part of the culture here in Tokyo and other parts of Japan. In America we let are waste (trash) bury underground and let it deplete into the environment. Here in Tokyo they burn their trash because it is not much natural land spaces to just bury it underground. This method can become very expensive and dangerous to the air quality because the smoke is released from tall smoke stacks located throughout the city. Littering and spitting on the ground is frowned upon in this culture. I have a habit of spitting and littering back home in the states and when I did that here I got a few “dirty looks”. When u look around you see no trash on the grounds but you see a lot of recycle bins located on the streets and in every restaurant.