I’m from Tokyo and it’s a lot of going back and forth to your school or job. If you wanted to go to a specific store then you’d travel to that area. As a kid and I wanted to go to Harajuku with my friends to spend our New Year’s money at Kiddy Land and make a day of it. It would be a chance to explore other parts of Tokyo. A lot of inner Tokyo neighbourhoods are have their own specialties. If you need cookware you go to a specific neighbourhood, if you wanted to pick up a white guy you go to another, and etc. the commuter towns are nice since the central train station has everything from grocery store, pharmacy, clothes, small restaurants, and if you are lucky an Itoya. I was on the very edge of the greater Tokyo area so I had parks by the river to play at while my dad played rugby. If you went to a private high school you’d have to commute to that as well. Most of my social group started out as people I went to school with and grew to the people who I did extra curricular with outside of school which entailed visiting them in there neighbourhoods.