Comments on Japan

Observations:
1) I find that Japanese have much more liquid views on aging and expectations of different age categories. When you walk into the manga (comic book) section of a bookstore, not only do you see the 10 year old boys and girls standing in the aisles reading manga, but 50 year old businessmen and 70 year old women with canes. Also, you're about equally as likely to see an old woman, a highschool boy and a young professional riding a bicycle or scooter down the street. It's refreshing to be around people who care more about what's practical or what they actually enjoy than what expectations society places on them.

2) Before I came to Japan, I thought it would be a place of heavy automation. To a certain extent it is, but one of the most striking things walking around the city is the number of public workers everywhere - directing traffic into office parking lots, repairing sidewalks and buildings, constructing things. I can't off the top of my head think of a single time I've been out for more than 15 minutes during working hours when I haven't seen at least one person in a uniform doing something to make sure the city runs smoothly.

3) On every single sidewalk that I've seen in Hiroshima, there is a yellow ridged walkway down the middle. At first I thought they were just for decoration, but later realized that they were to help blind people navigate through the city. They are so pervasive in the city that I think there must be a law stating they need to be included in every public space. At Hiroshima station, they have this intricate web of steel studs in the tiles that match the same pattern as the sidewalks. I'm not sure if this is universal in Japan, or if perhaps there is/was a higher incidence of blindness in Hiroshima following WW2.