Wonders never cease

I'm always amazed to learn something new about Japanese efficiency, and especially how technology is put to work to improve basic boring bureaucratic operations.

Today, for example, I went to Japan Post to mail a registered letter to the US. The post-office lady asked me to wait and, a minute later, handed me a computer printout with actual scanned images of the address and return address I'd written on my letter. She didn't have to write anything or copy anything herself.

At city bus stops, each bus's GPS tells waiting commuters when their bus is 1, 2 or 3 stops away - and sometimes how many minutes it will take to reach the next major destination based on the traffic ahead. (In 2001, when I was covering then-candidate Mike Bloomberg's first campaign for NYC mayor, Bloomberg said he wanted to install GPS on every city bus - and I thought it was a ridiculous and impossible idea.)

And at grocery stores, clerks feed paper money and coins into the cash register's computer to ensure exact change is returned.

I'm sure there are hundreds of other examples that I haven't yet seen.