It has been over a year now since I have left Japan. It still doesn't feel like it has been that long. It feels like it was only a few months ago. I suppose it will take a while before I feel like Arizona is my home again.
Today, I reminisced with some friends about my experiences in Japan and I realized that the pain I felt every time I thought about Japan, wasn't there. So maybe now is a good time to talk about some things that I miss about Japan, and some things that I really am so happy to have again now that I am back home. Let's start with what I am happy to have again in Arizona. 1. Dishwasher I cannot begin to express my happiness with the modern invention known as the dishwasher. It is a glorious item. I don't think I have washed dishes by hand since I came home. I have been shoving everything in the dishwasher and turn it on without care. I feel no shame. I am so happy that this item exists! It is nice to let a machine do something so mundane as washing dishes. Maybe I am showing my "first world privilege" but I do not care. I am just so happy I never have to stand at my sink and splash myself accidentally from spoons anymore. 2. Garbage disposal This may seem really stupid, but we used to have to clean our sink out at least once a week, and deep clean the drain every couple of weeks or so because food particles would get trapped in there. It was the GROSSEST thing ever. I hated it so much. I gagged all the time. We tried to avoid sticking our hands in there as often as we could. We tried to buy all the different products that claimed to dissolve the food particles but you know that they never actually worked. The garbage disposal reduces the frequency which you needed to stick your hand down into the depths of despair to clean it out. God bless this glorious invention. 3. Central AC Yes, I had AC in Japan, but it sucked. It was one of those little wall units that only really cooled down the one room and not the entire apartment. There was always one room in our apartment that we rarely used because it could not get heating or cooling. Even in the room that did have the AC, it wasn't very effective and we would still sweat at night and long for the day when we would return to AZ. I cannot tell you how much I love the AC. It was a familiar feeling to walk into a building in the dead of summer, and wish I had a sweater. It is the true mark of Arizona air conditioning. Love it! 4. Ceiling fans They tried to install ceiling fans in my school during my last year there, and it was such a joke. They weren't electric. They were attached to the AC unit vents and would rotate when the AC was running. I guess they believed that it would circulate the air better or something, but all it really did was keep the air from all of us. The blades often got stuck and would block the air flow. It just made the room hotter, not cooler. But in the US we have them attached to the ceiling and are electric. So air can efficiently circulate throughout the room without blocking the AC vents. My AC is kept at a warm temperature during the day but I don't hardly notice because of the fan. The glorious fan. 5. Garbage Y'all knew this was coming. The first week I threw anything away, I felt pride being able to throw it away in the same bag and not needing to separate needlessly into all these different trash cans. Everything goes in the dump, I don't need to call anyone and wait a month for it to be picked up. It is the best feeling ever. I think I even said "Take that Japan!" anytime I tossed bottles, and napkins simultaneously. I will NEVER miss the garbage system in Japan. Now let's talk about some things that I miss from Japan. Spoiler alert! The garbage is not one of them. 1. Public toilets The public toilets here are nasty. It feels like a prison cell every time I need to use them. They smell, the doors are always broken, children make eye contact with you in the door cracks when you are most vulnerable, and the automatic flusher never seems to understand when I sit and when I stand, always leaving my bare bum wet. Besides the toilets being gross, the sinks never recognize me as human. I can wave my hands under the sink all I want, it will never turn on. I just use sanitizer to clean my hands. I have given up using the sink to wash my hands at this point. I try to avoid the public restrooms as often as I can. In Japan you have separate rooms as stalls. They go from floor to ceiling. The lock on the outside of the door is green when vacant, and red when occupied. The woman's restroom includes baby urinals for the mothers with small boys, and they have toddler seats so the mother doesn't need to always use the handicap stall to bring their child with them. The sinks also have better recognition systems so the water always turn on. I could go on and on, but long story short, US bathrooms are prison cells, Japanese bathrooms are majestic. 2. Onsens I miss public baths. They were so good for my body when I had injuries or sore muscles. Plus, during the winter it is just nice to take a hot bath outside while it was snowing. I loved the onsens. I used them all the time. It was stress relieving. We have spas here, but the water temp is way cooler. They are very hot in Japan and it took a while to get used to, but now I cannot take a bath or use a spa without it being that hot. Sure, it was weird to shower and bath with other naked women, but you get used to it. They also keep to themselves so you never had anyone just walk up to you and start chatting. They respected boundaries well there. 3. Baths/Showers I feel like it relates to the onsen one, but during the winter, when I didn't want to pay to use the onsen, I would use my own bath in my apartment. (This will sound weird, but if you are girl you will understand) The tubs in Japan always had excellent boob to knee ratio. They were really deep and you could easily lay back and relax without any part of you being too exposed to the air getting cold. The absolute best feature of the baths, were the oidaki buttons. It is a button that will heat up the water in the tub while you are using it. I would sit in the tub, bring my phone or tablet and watch a TV show, and when the water would start to get cold, I would push the oidaki button and it would gradually get warm again. I would spend 30-60 minutes in the tub all the time during the winter. It was the best way to get warm. Here, not so much. It is very shallow, you can't really get comfortable enough to relax, and the water gets cold really quickly with no way to reheat it without emptying the tub and filling it back up again. Japan is superior in this one. As for the shower, I never thought I would like chairs in the shower, but I came to love them for 2 reasons. I have endometriosis and during my periods, my cramping is severe enough that I cannot stand. The chair was so helpful during those times. Now, I just have to wait until my period ends before I can shower again. When I broke my foot in 2019, I could not stand without assistance. And I needed to keep my foot dry. Using the chair and removable shower head was a dream because I didn't have to worry about it. I injured my back in AZ a few months back, and standing hurt really bad for a while. Showering was really difficult and I had to keep sitting on the tub floor to relieve my back pain. I really wished I had the chair. 4. Heated Toilet seats This sounds weird at first, but think of this. It is winter, and you are cold, you need to use the bathroom and when you sit, your butt is assaulted by the freezing cold seat. Well, that doesn't happen in Japan. The seats are heated, so when you sit, it is nice and warm and comforting. Need I say more? 5. The Food! Is this really surprising? It is always one of the first things that people miss when they move locations. It is always the food. Thankfully, there are a number of Asian and Japanese food markets nearby that we can get some of the comforts, but there are things that they do not sell that I miss, and the rice is different here, so sushi and onigiri doesn't take the same. I have made several Japanese dishes since being back and those always make me feel happy. So there you go! These are just some of the things that I miss about Japan and some of the things that I love and am grateful for now that I am back. If only there was a third location which included both American and Japanese lifestyles. That would be the dream! Maybe when I buy a house I can make it a mish mosh of Japan and America.
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AuthorJeny B Archives
August 2021
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