I’ve never been to Japan.  It’s possible I may never go to Japan.  Nonetheless, YouTube has many interesting videos about many interesting places.  Recently I saw some videos about driving through Tokyo.

Now American cities, generally, are not very impressive.  Most cities – even large ones – have a small downtown core, and sprawl out with a large suburban footprint.  Tokyo reminded me of an American city in aesthetic – it could have been Dallas, or Los Angeles, or Houston, or New York.

Except it just didn’t stop.

It had to be half an hour of skyscraper after skyscraper.  Turn onto the Rainbow Bridge – skyscrapers in the distance.  Turn north off the bridge – more skyscrapers.  Turn west, north, west, whatever – everywhere you go just skyscraper after skyscraper after skyscraper.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t damn impressive.

The speed limit on Japanese expressways in Tokyo seems to be around 60kph, or around 40mph, which is different than here in America – the speed limits here are often 55 to 65 mph in the city centers.  I noticed also that, while in America, we seem to focus on wide freeways, even in the city center, freeways/tollways are only four to six lanes at most.  Perhaps this is because they have such an efficient rail network and don’t need them.  I also noticed that there were no potholes.  Try driving through almost any large American city, and play “dodge the pothole”.

Apparently, in Japan, there are also d-bags, as I saw a couple as well.

It is, at least from a distance, an astonishingly modern city, even though I’m sure there are areas that are… not so much.

I almost want to visit just to see the Tokyo skyline – such as it is, as saying Tokyo has a skyline is rather like saying Mount Fuji is a pretty impressive hill – in the morning.  I imagine that is, in its own way, breathtaking.