"Y'see that big drawing of a 車椅子, pal?"

One thing I've noticed now that I can drive here in Japan is that newer commercial buildings seem to be required to have handicapped accessible parking. However, it also seems that there is no law or rule in place to reserve said parking for handicapped people. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people blithely drive into the handicapped parking, jump out of their car and dash into the store. Their cars are usually still there when I'm leaving.

My boss has noticed this too, and for some reason (possibly the couple years she spent living in California), this really pisses her off. She's even confronted people about it.

Usually, when the topic comes up in conversation at work, it usually leads to a rant session about how many young people in Japan don't seem to give a damn about things. The example I often cite is seeing kids sitting in the parking lot of the local convenience store, eating bento and drinking can coffee, and then just leaving their bags and cans sitting on the ground, not five meters away from the big garbage/recycling containers next to the store entrance.

Not all Japanese youth are like this, but the ones who are are extremely noticeable.