Lifestyle Seems to be Decreasing Hunger (input?)

I like that "hai" lol!

That's right, sounds like you're doing just fine. Don't want to change too many things at once.

Japan? I was originally an Asian studies major and since learning to speak Chinese and after having lived in Taiwan and China, wanted to live in an Asian culture so that everything would be different every day.

Never thought I would stay in Japan, but the lifestyle for English teachers is great. Sounds like hell right? People commuting for 2-3 hours to and from work? Wrong. Ten minutes. People working long hours? Wrong. 8-9 hours a day, usually unmanaged. People stern and inscrutinable? Sometimes, but many of my students are sweet, outgoing and laugh out loud a lot.

That's how it happened.

I wonder if there's really that big a difference nowadays between the best American cars and the best Japanese cars? The Toyotas can often run for 300,000 miles and have few bugs in them from the beginning, but my parent's had always been big Oldmobile fans and then later Jeep Cherokee fans and those cars seem great, too. Probably a little more heavily built, but I think the Japanese cars have also caught up in safety engineering.

Biggest difference that I've noticed? People who buy foreign cars here in Japan end up having to take them back to the shop from the beginning to get little problems taken care of, while with the Japanese cars, there's little of that happening. I think they spend tons on Quality Control.

Best Wishes,

Dave