What's missing ... or not

Maybe I have told this earlier, but Japan is all about convenience: the most shopping centres are located around the train/subway stations, convenience stores are open 24/7 (and you can buy there everything from food to tooth brushes, plus also pay your electric or other bills), trains are arriving every 5 minutes (depends on the line, though. Trains on Yamanote line, the one that circles around the central Tokyo, come every 3-7 mintes. On the other hand, the trains on Tobu-Tojo line, which I use every day to get to university, arrive every 10-15 minutes).
There are some things which I find inconvenient. Actually, only one - the last train for my station leaves at 00:30. The next train is around 5:40. That doesn't leave you much time to chat with friends from other parts of Tokyo.
Another thing is completely missing in the streets:

Yes! These are garbage cans! And you can be sure, if you miss the opportunity to throw you trash out, while you still can see one, it's unlikely that you will find another one around. Sometimes you can circle the whole area without finding any trashcans. And still, Japan is by far the cleanest country I've seen. Makes me wonder, what do we do wrong in Europe ... I guess, it's a culture difference - here you have to keep your garbage in your own bag :D

Autumn

Finally it's Autumn!! The season started for long ago, but finally you can feel the actual change in the weather. It's around 15 degrees Celcius outside, and sometimes it's even raining (once or twice in 2 weeks). Well, it's too early for the rainy season, it's in Winter. But this is what Japan looks like when it's rainy (sorry for the bad quality of the photos, I was taking pictures with my phone. I promise to replace them as soon as I can ;) ):

This is, by the way, the famous Shibuya crossing - the most crowded pedestrian crossing in the world. There can be up to 2.000 people crossing this road here on a Saturday afternoon at the same time.

And this lovely place is near Ikebukuro station :D

You probably noticed the transparent umbrellas - they are everywhere. Not all people remember to watch the weather forecast (which is about 90-95% accurate here in Japan) in the morning. So if it suddenly (for some people) begins to rain outside, they can go to the nearest convenience store, kiosk, drugstore or supermarket to buy one of these umbrellas. These are disposable umbrellas, only for one time use, therefore, they cost around 500 yen. Though, I've seen one in a supermarket for as little as 150 yen! If you're a fan of transparent umbrellas, you can also buy a normal one, which won't break after one use. These will be at least twice as expensive.

Nature

So, I made a video of my latest hiking trip, just to make it interesting for both you and me ^^ Enjoy ;)

The Language

I'm back ^^ So, here's a small post about the language, because there are some interestings issues in connection with it. As you can imagine, all the bigger nations are more or less self-sufficient, and Japanese is one of them. Most of the people living here are the Japanese, so there's no need to learn English. Therefore, except the buisiness life, English language is more like a trend. It's fashionable to wear t-shirts with imprinted English words or sentences that do not make any sence, or name a fashion shop in English just for the language's sake:

Funny, right?

Well, here is another example, just outside Ikebukuro station: