[presentation]

Old technologies do stay in use for a long time, and while it’s annoying to need to send a fax occasionally, they’ve made it brilliantly easy to do by providing fax services for < $0.50 in any convenience store in the city (there are like 50,000+ of those). Generally don’t need to though and for the most part I’m using more advanced technology than in the USA (like the transit payment cards, which with Japan’s recent cashless push are accepted in most stores).

Ikebukuro is the nearest place to where I live that has a reputation for being “dangerous”, with a homeless population and a large yakuza-dominated nightlife district, but by that I mean there’s like 20 harmless old drunk men around in the plaza sitting around, and a high concentration of sex shops - not dangerous at all though by foreign standards (small women can still feel safe walking around at 3am if they felt like it).