"Study Questions#1"

I agree with Donald Riche's point of view that there is no permanence in japanese archtecture. How many shops disappear after one year on the shopping street?
How many new buildings are constructed in one paticular area downtown per year?
you dont really notice how they changed if you live in the community, however, i still remember how shocking it was to see my favorite part of my neighborhood had changed after i came back from studing in Europe. It is really sad to see old good shops on the shopping street closed and replaced by american fastfood or cafes.
I mean, it surely happenes everywhere around the world, but still it is significant among Asian countries.
Regarding characteristics of Tokyo, I dont really like the crowds and i definitely think this city, Tokyo is fun and exciting when you are young but i always ask myself if i really wanna stay here for good. the answer is of course no.
In addition, i find some of Japanese subcultures are really painful to show to the rest of the world, such as Otaku, maid cafe and stuff. I am not being mean, however, those weird things are dipicted and i just cant stand listening to people in other countries talk about Japan as a freaky country.

Roppongi Hills Area
-I observed around Roppongi Hills area, namely around Keyaki-Zaka for 3 days. This place is between 2 stations, Nogizaka and Azabujyuban.
I watched people and surroundings while i was sitting outside of Starbucks, drinking coffee.
It was around 4 pm and i saw some people walking with dogs( most of them were putting on cute clothes...:p)
Even if that place is really close to such an exclusive building, people come here as they take a walk or so.
They come to keyakizaka to take a walk, i could also see school kids going home, playing around. On the other hand, there were many business men and women coming to starbucks to buy coffee. I happened? to see couple of TUJ students during my observation and it seems TUJ students come to Nogizaka to take a break between classes^^ Since it is close to Roppongi, people around there were really international.
However, It was kinda strange to see school kids playing around near Roppongi Hills in thier school uniform. I guess they dont really have a huge park or anywhere they could get together and hang out as i used to in my childhood. It might be sort of hard to find that kind of place in the middle of tokyo, especially in Minato-ku. it was also really funny and strange to see nerdy-looking junior high school kids smoking as they passed Starbucks at Nogizaka!

hey, this is Azu.
I am pretty excited about this class and i hope i can get to know my class mates well( it seems we have only young ladies except Ron!)
Nice to meet you guys!!!!!!^^