I hate it when I feel insecure even in my own hometown, and I avoid the city center already in the evenings; I haven’t gone there at night for 15 years. You can clearly notice the change; the easygoing and innocent drunks have been replaced by unpredictable and aggressive drug addicts or simply people who have gone crazy after the downturn started by the pandemic, illegal handguns are becoming more common, etc. I don’t like the direction of development at all, but I guess I just have to adapt to this too and hope to skip the crazy ones for the rest of my life. This is also a kind of lottery; if you stay home, it’s like not filling out a lottery ticket, but if you go out at night, it’s time to pick the right line and hope you don’t even get four correct numbers.
Japan is still the safest country I’ve visited. I’ve enjoyed myself without fearing anything or anyone in the middle of the night on the streets of Tokyo and in dark alleyways, as there is simply nothing to fear there, at most an earthquake might surprise you. In that country, even the crazy ones have manners. Oh well, a ninth trip to Japan is possibly in the cards next spring, we’ll see…
And maybe a little shopping on the side…