In no particular order:
The shops are fantastic and so eclectically mental.
People are so polite all the time, even if I'm being an annoying gaijin and getting in their way/not understanding them.
The food is delicious and very reasonably priced. And you don't need to tip.
The overground and underground train systems are super-efficient all over Tokyo and the surrounding areas; there are underground stations on every block and trains every couple of minutes.
All the trains and most of the stations are fully air-conditioned (why can't the London tube be like that...).
You get full 3G mobile reception everywhere, including the underground stations and on the trains (even while they're moving through the tunnels!).
You also get wifi in most stations and trains and they have mobile WiMAX here already.
It's the safest city I've ever been to. And the most convenient.
It's so easy to get away from it all by going to one of the beautiful shrines or heading to the countryside.
Everybody holds lift doors open for people when they get on and off.
All women always use the 'toilet flush sound effect' so you don't hear them pee (I do it too now, so I don't get nasty looks when I come out the cubicle).
If a person has a cold, they wear a surgical mask so that nobody else catches it from them.
There are cartoon characters on everything and everywhere and it is completely socially acceptable to buy things with cartoon characters on them, regardless of your age/sex/occupation.
The posters and adverts are often hilarious.
You will never be thirsty as there are vending machines every 20 yards or so.
So many things are open so late - shops until 10pm, restaurants until midnight and cinemas, bars and internet cafes often all night.
The people who I work with have restored my faith in financial industries and are all so lovely, kind and very down to earth. As far as I can see, RBS Tokyo is not one of the bad guys (they blame everyone at the other RBSs...).
Everybody from Tokyo is slim, looks fantastic and dresses impecably stylishly.
I must be the only female over the age of 16 who doesn't wear stilletoes everyday (how do they manage?!).
Everything is newer than brand new.
The last point was further highlighted when I nipped to the local electronics store after dinner today (a massive 8 floor extravaganza). I needed to buy an external hard drive to store all my millions of photos on! I ended up getting a new flash drive too, as I keep breaking freebie ones I get from career fairs. Check out the 4GB one I bought:
Huge, isn't it? The bit on the left is only the lid! The actual drive is only that 5mm black bit at the top! And it was only £10 - technology is so far advanced here, it's unbelievable. When I was paying for my cool stuff, I saw this TV and instantly wanted to win the lottery so that I could buy it.
It's a 103 inch high definition plasma screen and probably one of most impressive pieces of kit I have ever seen. It costs about £40,000. Yikes...
Work today was really good fun actually and it's going to sound really sad when I tell you what I found enjoyable - today was my first day of learning C#; a computer programming language. I feel so cool right now... Thing is, learning a bit of programming is massively useful for me right now and also completely applicable to what I'm studying at uni next year as well as what I'm doing at work just now. So it's win win for me! I was so proud of my day's achievements - I made a few wee programmes that estimated the value of pi using truncated infinite sums and then Monte Carlo simulations. NERD ALERT. I also used some graphics to display the results and calculation time with buttons and progress bars. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to go into more detail about the maths behind more complicated Monte Carlo simulations and make a programme that will price trades.
Remember folks: it's hip to be square.
