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I have been checking out YouTube's "walking around" in Japan as it was interesting & nice "time killer".
On 1 episode, I saw around 6 or 7 bookstores (used?) in a block, one after another; the next block had more bookstores with a grocery store sometimes in-between. Don't know how small the bookstores are as only saw the storefronts with shelves of many books.
Then encountered an episode featuring a "Kanda (sp?) book festival". Could have been the same stores previously seen but in this case even the sidewalks had shelves of books. AND people were looking/browsing the various bookshelves/cases.
As I saw in Tokyo & other cities, the people seem to walk around holding smartphones & some were looking at the devices all the time; or talking on the phone which is surprising as there were lots of phone booths, still; encased in 4 sided glass & the booths had a small shelf for writing notes or whatever. An anomaly.
Wonder if there are still many bookstores in other countries or even phone booths still in good operating condition. I consider that Japan is a very "hi-tech" country but still having so many bookstores just boggles my mind where people are still reading printed books & buying them. But they still have unvandalized phone booths.
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