Day 5: On Bigness

I don't think I'm ever going to get over just how big Osaka is.

I mean, sure, it's big. It's a city, by definition, a city is usually bigger than most things around it. And true, the neighborhoods seem an endless maze of twisty roads and winding hills. But that's not what we think of when we think "big city", is it? We're American, we think Washington D.C., we think San Fransisco, we think New York City. We think of tall skyscrapers where we can dangle our legs and look at the helicopters down below. We think packed streets, full of people going places, always busy, always busy. I can look out my window, and for most of the day, never see a soul. Even the main roads are never clogged with traffic, either on foot, on bicycle, or car. I remember somebody told me Osaka could rival New York City in size. I nodded along, rolling my eyes on the inside. And for the first few days coming here, I kept rolling them.

Yesterday, we had to go into Toyonaka City to get our Alien Registration Cards. You know, those things that say you're legally allowed to be here, and here's my address, I swear I'm not a hobo. We took the train, much like our Metro system back home. There's a station a good fifteen minute walk from our house. We rode for a stop, switched trains, rode another three stops, and reached our destination. All in all, maybe another ten to fifteen minutes. A small walk later, and we found the city hall where we could register. All told, it was a journey of a little more than a half hour, both walking and riding the train. And for that entire time, we didn't see a single clearing or break in the city. Not only that, but take a look:

Repeat in all four directions, with no end in sight

You see how densely packed everything is? There is not a foot of wasted space. And not once in our trip did the city get any less dense. The city simply exists everywhere, over everything, and every inch of it teems with life.

But wait, it gets better:

You might recall me saying we had to go into Toyonaka City, not Osaka. Well Osaka is also the name of the prefecture around the main city of Osaka. The area we've been exploring, Toyonaka, is just one of nine other sub-cities. All we've been seeing so far is only a small fraction of what the entire Osaka area has to offer, and we haven't even been in the main city yet. If you took New York City, chopped up each building into three-story chunks, spread them out, and changed all the hot dog stands to ramen shops, you'd get Osaka.

Needless to say, I'm not rolling my eyes anymore.