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Comment by hfosidkc77 | Hacker News Reader

I lived in Tokyo for a year and my favorite hobby was taking the train somewhere about 10 miles from home then just wandering around, vaguely towards home. It's such a beautiful walkable city, and the safety means you don't need to worry about much at all. I usually walked at night and I would come across drunk people stumbling home, pets (and rodents!) roaming the streets, construction in the middle of the night, strange open late restaurants / bars, and all kinds of other things. Living in Japan has its downsides but that activity was a nice reminder of what a cool place it is. I continue going back every year just to explore new little places I've never gone. I recommend anyone who visits to find some time to just wander around. Pick a destination and walk there and see what you find.

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I think a lot of that is more "Tokyo" than "Japan" though. My general experience outside of the metropoolis (and even within Tokyo proper, there are good chunks that are properly dead beyond a certain time) is that the evenings are nice and dark.

This isn't even really limited to the countryside, plenty of decently large cities will have most all of their evening activity be focused on a handful of streets.

This is fine, of course! I do think a lot about how much of the image of Japan is mostly the image of Tokyo itself. Not the largest city in the world anymore but quite close.

Tokyo is def very cool though. Huge city that you can actually move around in easily enough means that no matter how microscopic of a subculture you belong to there'll be _some_ people out there in the same category. And very fun to walk around in. Really a great joy to just be able to walk in the middle of a street and not really worry about cars.

True although I think there’s too much of a correction whenever people bring up Tokyo vs Japan.

I’m grateful to live in Tokyo but if I didn’t live in Tokyo I wouldn’t live in Japan. I’m definitely open to a vacation home in the countryside.

I could see myself living in NYC (Manhattan specifically) but wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the US. Tokyo is big enough that you rarely have to leave and see the rest of the country. I don’t think we have to judge countries by their countrysides.

> I don’t think we have to judge countries by their countrysides.

My least favorite place in the US is Manhattan, and my least favorite place in Japan is Tokyo. If I couldn't judge a country by its countryside, I suspect I would hate most countries.

Yep, I live in Tokyo too and I love this city. However, one of the first things I did when I moved here was buy a car to travel and explore outside of Tokyo for the weekends.

Yeah I feel like NYC is a good parallel. It's "America" but it's also very much its own place

> Tokyo is big enough that you rarely have to leave and see the rest of the country. I don’t think we have to judge countries by their countrysides.

Go see the rest of the country, it's nice! Well, I like Nagano at least. Good opportunities to go touch grass a bit.

I also lived there for some time and while walking at night I usually noticed that most neighbourhoods were so much quiet and darker compared from what I was used. About pets and rodents I've never seen a stray dog in Tokyo or other places that I've visited in Japan, but yes I've seen rodents there also. I have a scary memory from the first time that I saw a weasel walking in front of me on a night walk because I was wondering "is that a cat? a dog? what is that?"

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