Waste

Holy crap America is wasteful. It is just another one of those things you can't quite comprehend until you take a step back (or in my case take 8200 miles worth of steps away) and see from an outsiders perspective.

I walk into a bathroom, even in an office building or restaurant, and usually see the lights off. That's what you're supposed to do when you leave a room, turn off the lights. I actually feel kind of bad when I see the lights on now. My office has a "1 hour no power" program on top of that" where for 1 hour every day, usually lunch time, all the lights are turned off. It's a great excuse to go out and eat, chill outside, or work by just sunlight.

I've stayed in apartments and houses that require you to turn on/off the water heater before and after using the shower. Japanese tubs have a sweet control panel that lets you turn on/off the water heater and control your bath water temperature. It actually maintains the temperature too instead of going from scalding hot to arctic ocean like american style tubs.

Man are there 50-125cc bikes and scooters everywhere. 76% of the time you american folks drive alone to work - so you rarely need a car and nobody needs a truck. Quit being homophobic, sell your ridiculous truck and custom truck nuts and get a manly ass scooter...or don't and just stay out of the way while I lane split yo ass on my bike while you sit in traffic. I only spent 3 days driving (read "idling car while being pissed off'") downtown before pulling the trigger on buying a bike. Traffic is bad here due to the lack of any real public transportation. A bike will save you hours of time per week.

250ccs of raw power baby! 250s don't have to do the vehicle inspections, 車検, either

Speaking of vehicles, Japan gives specific license plates and charges more tax for larger cars. I initially wanted to get a Kei Car (the smallest class with 660cc engine or less - think Smart car) but they have no room for Scuba gear or really anything except 2-4 people. So I ended up getting a Honda fit which is a mid-size here and gets 57mpg suckas. What classifies as a large car? A Prius. A Civic. Or anything else you might buy in the states and think you're saving the world...