Tiny Tokyo Food Trucks

Like San Francisco and New York City, food trucks are big in Tokyo. Well not exactly big but tiny in fact.

How they fit all the food and a kitchen into these little trucks is a mystery.

My favorite was this truck with a wood-burning oven baking sweet potatoes late into the night. (Could be that sweet potatoes are an after-bar snack.)

And then there's the cultural dilemma. It's kind of rude to eat on the street in Japan (Please don't do it on public transportation!) but what are you going to do at a food truck?

It's usually young people buying food. Is it because they are willing to challenge the convention or because older people don't like food served out of a truck?

Which brings me to another cultural difference in Japan. One day I noticed something strange: Where the heck are the trash bins in Tokyo?

The streets are generally immaculate but there's nowhere to dump your fast food wrappers.

Surprisingly, you are expected to carry your trash with you and dispose of it at home.

Contrast that with some American cities where there are plenty of trash cans around yet there's litter everywhere. Go figure.

At Disney World, they put a trash bin every 30 feet so you never have to walk more than 12 steps to dump your trash.

I'm not sure what that says about the cultural differences between the two countries. But I feel a bit silly carrying around a crumpled-up bag all day until I get back to my hotel room where there's a nice bin, emptied daily by housekeeping.