hi, yes re UCLA , the somewhat disparaging comment I heard from some was the acronym UCLA = "university of caucasians lost among asians" it was about 40% Asian student enrollment back in 82-87 when I was there ....
I first learned back then, about values of hard work and consistent, persistent focus on "getting it right" .. the work ethic was like 10x from asian students relative to usa ones.. they'd live in the library, we'd try to emulate.. getting sidetracked by the frat parties etc.. one realizes, eg the hopes of a generation may be pinned on an out of country foreign student attending with help from life savings of an extended family, to be able to get them a good engineering degree, so they could help the family back home..much different than us relatively spoiled westerners.. was an eye opening experience for me.. to realize how others lived, from other countries..
Overall being exposed to asian people, be it managers, women, business leaders, has been one of the defining positive parts of my life. My master's thesis at CSULB was on masaki imai's excellent "Kaizen" book, and I went on to work with many people around the world to help w/process improvement/tqm types of projects (
www.dtu1.com/clients.htm ) .. all very interesting ..
not to mention all the girlfriends ..

asian women are great. simply irresistable, like that song says.
agree re kobe, the bakeries there are terrific.. superb food at the "opa" and other places... I liked kyoto too .. took a half day JTB tour there which was the highlight of my 2 week trip there a couple years back.. that and all the ah scenery.
one of the things to get used to in japan, is the beer vending machines on every street... I'd wonder what the reaction would be in america if we did that .. likely a bunch o teenagers getting into trouble lol ..
anyways, I'm living close to asia here, in hawaii .. will be moving to japan for a few years (on my life list of things to do)... hard to leave hawaii for anything though.. this place is too beautiful, the scenery of all kinds, breathtaking...
ken