Public Transportation and Smart Growth

we moved to Japan. My dad was the Air Attache at the US embassy, so we lived "on the economy" rather than on a military base.

The Naval Attache and his family were assigned to help our family adjust and one of the first things they did was sit my parents down and offer their eleven year old son to help me learn how to navigate Tokyo.

They had been there for a year when we came.

So an eleven year old taught a nine year old how to use the subway system, the buses, and the cabs. After a few months I had picked up enough Japanese to navigate the city - and I knew where I shouldn't go as well as where I could go without danger. I knew who to turn to if I needed help and never once did I feel the least bit of fear of discomfort.

I also knew that if I found myself on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from an adult - in a shop or on the street - it was because I had done something that deserved it.