流れと行きなさい (Go With the Flow)
Japan is one of those places that is very much about saving the environment, and being one with nature, and dry humping trees, and all that other hippy stuff. In theory it's all well and good. Saving the Earth is a noble cause to some (I see it as more self serving than anything else, equal to cleaning up your own home for example), and I'm sure our fellow animals would express some gratitude for not jacking up their homelands if they were capable of such a thing (or would they...). But in practice though...it's like the worst thing ever. I can deal with the whole recycling thing, and having to separate my plastics from my glass from my burnable shit from my cans of crap, but I can't deal with McDonald's workers hording ketchup packets like the apocalypse is coming (DO THEY KNOW SOMETHING I DON'T?!). And it's slightly annoying when my cell phone company, AU, decides to stop sending me paper bills in order to save paper, yet also doesn't send me the notice telling me they're not sending me paper bills any more because, yet again, they're trying to save paper.
But what's really grinding my gears these days are toilets. Yes, those magical, musical, butt washing instruments that I usually have a fondness for. What I don't have a fondness for is there lack of water and flushing power. I knew something was fishy with the toilets here when I first arrived many years ago, but now I can finally put my finger on it. They're what ya call "low flow toilets". They're supposed to save water and energy, but they're terrible at flushing stuff so you wind up having to flush 70 times (to no avail) anyway. It ain't so bad when you're leaving liquids in there, but anything else...forget about it. I dunno, man. I am starting to miss the giant toilet bowls and their satisfying woosh sounds from back home. And the fact that they actually do what they're supposed to do. It's strange, too, because the Japanese are so great at taking existing things and improving on them, but in this case they've taken something that worked just fine and made it horrible.
I'm just sayin'. If you need more water, go stick a glass in the ocean. Just gimee back my toilet flushing power. It'll be to everybody's benefit.