gatubela
02-04-2006, 10:04 AM
So just arrived here and will be here for a while. Its a strange mix of futuristic, backward, and just plain curious at times: Some things of note:
- looking at apartments, I was amazed by some of the Kyoto driven energy saving systems. Then I move into a quite large apartment, and there are two dials, one for central air-con, one for heat, and we have to heat or cool the whole apartment or nothing at all. So if we want to sleep in a warm room (it gets as cold as England in the winter), we have to heat the other two bedrooms, the hallway, living room, kitchen and bathrooms too.
- saw a toilet where after flushing it, the cistern fills up by water flowing from a tap into a bowl on top of the cistern, so you can wash your hands in the water as it fills the cistern up. Why didn't anyone else think of that?!
- in general, toilets in buildings don't have doors (the stalls do, but not going into the toilet facilities), so no having to open the door by grabbing a handle that the last person probably grabbed without washing their hands. The angles mean you can't see in. Just seems such a good, hygenic idea.
- carrots can be as much as 75p each! So they wrap them individually. Seems to be a lot of recycling effort here, so why wrap every carrot in plastic? Green peppers are also wrapped individually...they are about 1.20 each! Strawberries are packed all lined up like good little soldiers...lots of attention to detail.
- when first arriving, watch how quickly the bags get packed into the bus! Its like there is some sort of competition as in "25 suitcases, gone in 21.6 seconds...Hai!" Takes the Mexicans about an hour.
- cable tv and satelite, loadsa channels in English...great! Then the only tv guide is in Japanese! I haven't got a clue whats on every night......
- Japanese word for cute and scary is almost identical. Note to self: be careful when calling neighbors baby cute.........
- why is that individually wrapped garlic bulb 70p, but that whole bucket load costs only a pound. Why can't I get about 4 or so bulbs for less than a pound? Maye just buy the bucket and leave the rest in the supermarket? Need to figure this one out.
- why, in arguably the safest city in the world, is everyone so obsessed with security? Why do I have a burgler alarm in my apartment when I could leave the door unlocked all year and not worry about it?
- they didn't understand my word for chicken in the restaurant, saying they didn't have any when I knew they did (pronunciation is quite subtle in Japanese). So I check with my teacher the next day...turns out I was asking for Puma!
More to come as I investigate further.
- looking at apartments, I was amazed by some of the Kyoto driven energy saving systems. Then I move into a quite large apartment, and there are two dials, one for central air-con, one for heat, and we have to heat or cool the whole apartment or nothing at all. So if we want to sleep in a warm room (it gets as cold as England in the winter), we have to heat the other two bedrooms, the hallway, living room, kitchen and bathrooms too.
- saw a toilet where after flushing it, the cistern fills up by water flowing from a tap into a bowl on top of the cistern, so you can wash your hands in the water as it fills the cistern up. Why didn't anyone else think of that?!
- in general, toilets in buildings don't have doors (the stalls do, but not going into the toilet facilities), so no having to open the door by grabbing a handle that the last person probably grabbed without washing their hands. The angles mean you can't see in. Just seems such a good, hygenic idea.
- carrots can be as much as 75p each! So they wrap them individually. Seems to be a lot of recycling effort here, so why wrap every carrot in plastic? Green peppers are also wrapped individually...they are about 1.20 each! Strawberries are packed all lined up like good little soldiers...lots of attention to detail.
- when first arriving, watch how quickly the bags get packed into the bus! Its like there is some sort of competition as in "25 suitcases, gone in 21.6 seconds...Hai!" Takes the Mexicans about an hour.
- cable tv and satelite, loadsa channels in English...great! Then the only tv guide is in Japanese! I haven't got a clue whats on every night......
- Japanese word for cute and scary is almost identical. Note to self: be careful when calling neighbors baby cute.........
- why is that individually wrapped garlic bulb 70p, but that whole bucket load costs only a pound. Why can't I get about 4 or so bulbs for less than a pound? Maye just buy the bucket and leave the rest in the supermarket? Need to figure this one out.
- why, in arguably the safest city in the world, is everyone so obsessed with security? Why do I have a burgler alarm in my apartment when I could leave the door unlocked all year and not worry about it?
- they didn't understand my word for chicken in the restaurant, saying they didn't have any when I knew they did (pronunciation is quite subtle in Japanese). So I check with my teacher the next day...turns out I was asking for Puma!
More to come as I investigate further.