Hi everyone from Fukuoka, Japan. Last year I upgraded from a 660cc "yellow plate" car to a Prius S, since the number of miles I've been driving for work has increased to around 120. It took quite a bit of getting used to compared to an ordinary car, however, since the speed limits here are much lower than back in Australia and driving through the suburbs is constantly interrupted by people pulling in and out of side roads, cylists, scooters and other chaos, I've been able to get close to the official figure for maximum mileage quite easily. I test drove a Honda Fit (Jazz) hybrid a couple of times, but, despite the Prius being bigger than I needed, the technology is just that much better. I just spent a couple of hours last night reading up on hypermiling and winter driving tips. I figured out how the car works pretty well on my own, so most were obvious, but stuffing tubing in the grill is certainly novel. I had a look at the Aqua (Prius C) yesterday too. Neat little car, if a bit cramped in the back.
Welcome aboard. Sounds like that yellow plate car was a [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car]Kei car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]. I'd heard of and seen Kei cars before, but didn't know about the yellow plates.
Presently I'm teaching Engrish (an old joke), but other than that my specialty is IT. cwerdna: That's right, a Kei car. They are tax-free for the first three years and get discounts on the highways. Thankfully, the Prius also gets discounts. Living down south, we don't get much snow. However, I did have a look in the hardware store for some of that black tubing people are using to partially block their grills in winter, but couldn't find any. Very odd considering how huge the store is.
Heh... I'm sure you know about Engrish.com then. I've visited Japan 4x before. I thought about temporarily teaching English in Japan before but decided against it. Seems like a huge pay cut vs. what I was doing before.
Yeah, all the great, high-paying jobs are disappearing. I've stuck it out, but it's not my only source of income, so I don't have to depend on it. If it weren't for Japan being a nice, safe place to bring up kids, I'm not sure I'd stay. Before I forget, a snap of one of my 100 mgp efforts:
