I think it’s important for us all to travel home every now and again to understand why we chose to stay in Japan. I’m at the top of the list when it comes to griping about the inconveniences and silly little games we all have to play to get through the day in Japan but we also take for granted some of the things that make it worthwhile. I’m sitting in the Newark airport at 5am and I’ve been in the back in the states for a day and holy crap the service is awful. Employees yelling at customers for no reason, playing on their phones at the ticketing counter just staring at the screen when you have a distressed family right in front of you, being absolutely confrontational about things that “aren’t your problem” everyone is super rude and have zero drive or energy. The driver of the airport shuttles doing their best to get the phone number of some random woman by themselves and ignoring the old woman with luggage carrying it up the stairs to the bus. On and on.