water's on

Guess what I am doing now. Just guess. I'm boiling water. Thirsty for tea, you ask? Making a nice pasta dinner? NO. I am boiling water because the majority of Japanese washing machines only have cold water wash. Why is this? Because they believe that cold water washes better and that all the germs will die when then hang their clothes out in the sunlight. hfdjohfcjdknbwfjk! Yeah. My thoughts exactly. No one tried to explain to me how the germs die during the midst of the rainy season when everyone has to hang laundry inside. Maybe the germs just commit suicide during this time. I really don't know. Anyway, because of this gross miscalucation of cold water wash, I have to boil large pots of water and throw them on my undies and unmentionables and kind of let them steam in the washing machine before I turn it on.

Here is another interesting fact. Some Japanese toothpastes have sugar added to them so they taste better. If you are brushing your teeth in sugar, is there really any point to brushing at all or are they relying on the abrasiveness to scrub their pearly whites clean? Meh.

As long as I am on a rant, I might a well complain about one last disgustingness. The mesh food bag. Japanese homes do not have garbage disposals. Instead, they have this system of a mesh bag that wraps around the inside of the drain in which to collect food from going completely down. When the bag gets full, your drain stops draining and you get a terrible back up of food and sludge. This is when you have to go into the sink and collect the bag with its weeks of rotting wet food and throw it out. Now, if I were smart, I would try to throw it away before this time, but more often that not my roommates do not wash their dishes and so I cannot get to the rotting food bag in time.

It is a strange feeling...for the first time in my life I am the clean one in the house. I remember trash day and drag the broom around the floor. :/