A few months ago, Eiji (Oznium employee) told me about gigantic apples in Japan that cost nearly $100 each. Supposedly, all but one apple on the tree is removed, which forces all nutrients into a single delicious apple.
I decided I must try this for myself, and so on I went, 5000 miles across the Pacific.
Japan is extremely strange, and awesome. It is a conformist society. Japanese hardly walk outside of the lines, both literally, and figuratively. You hardly ever see someone crossing the street unless the crosswalk sign says "walk".
With the exception of a small population of expressive youth, everyone seems to wear a suit. Efficiency is huge in Japan, as demonstrated by the progressive engineering of cubed watermelons, for example. Taxi doors open automatically. With more controls than a rocket ship, toilets have lids that open and close automatically.
Tokyo is the worlds most populous city, weighing in at something like 36 million people. Overlooking the cityscape from an observation tower, it is hard to wrap my mind around just how large and populous the city is.
Yet somehow, it is one of the cleanest, and safest cities I've seen. Police are everywhere. There's hardly any rubbish on the streets, and of course, no graffiti. I could go out in the middle of the night, walk for 20 minutes in any direction, and be quite all-right. Try that in Oakland. Everyone is super polite, even the cashier selling you a one-dollar pack of gum.
I haven't had a bad meal. Even the fast food is healthy and tasty. Its no wonder then, why Japanese live healthy lives. While the air quality could be better, it is certainly not as bad as I expected.