Slave to the Weather
It is kind of wonder that is a first world country you are a slave to the weather, and the size of your veranda.
You have to watch the weather forecast everyday and plan your laundry around the weather in a land where drying machines do not exist. I remember way back before coming to Japan I would wash my sheets and blankets on a regular basis, and every day (or every other day) when I was sick. It just doesn’t happen here because A) washing machines are tiny B) dryers are non-existant.
When you only get 2 days off a week and you have to hope that one of them is sunny so that you can do laundry… it is a drag. It is even worse of a drag when you realize that you have to be home to do this (it really cuts into one’s pathetic life schedule). Not only do you have to be home in order to wash and hang the laundry, you can’t go to far from home, just in case it starts to rain while you are hanging your laundry.
Luckily, it doesn’t rain as much here as it did back home, but we had a string of Typhoons that caused rainy weather (note that the Typhoons never reached land, they just caused enough disturbance in the weather patterns to cause massive rains) and one week the only day not slated for rain was a Saturday. It was great fun to spend hours on Saturday washing and hanging laundry. It was also fun doing things like wiping the moisture of the windowsills and cleaning up the rash of black mold that had appeared on the bathroom walls. And hanging out the futons to dry, because when it rains, everything just gets moist. Don’t forget to dress warm because you have all the windows open on a crisp morning in November. (But it is a clear, sunny day.)
You have to watch the weather forecast everyday and plan your laundry around the weather in a land where drying machines do not exist. I remember way back before coming to Japan I would wash my sheets and blankets on a regular basis, and every day (or every other day) when I was sick. It just doesn’t happen here because A) washing machines are tiny B) dryers are non-existant.
When you only get 2 days off a week and you have to hope that one of them is sunny so that you can do laundry… it is a drag. It is even worse of a drag when you realize that you have to be home to do this (it really cuts into one’s pathetic life schedule). Not only do you have to be home in order to wash and hang the laundry, you can’t go to far from home, just in case it starts to rain while you are hanging your laundry.
Luckily, it doesn’t rain as much here as it did back home, but we had a string of Typhoons that caused rainy weather (note that the Typhoons never reached land, they just caused enough disturbance in the weather patterns to cause massive rains) and one week the only day not slated for rain was a Saturday. It was great fun to spend hours on Saturday washing and hanging laundry. It was also fun doing things like wiping the moisture of the windowsills and cleaning up the rash of black mold that had appeared on the bathroom walls. And hanging out the futons to dry, because when it rains, everything just gets moist. Don’t forget to dress warm because you have all the windows open on a crisp morning in November. (But it is a clear, sunny day.)