Japanese plumbing sucks... but it doesn’t drain very well

Warning: this post isn't for the squeamish. If you're the kind of person who can't even scoop the gunk out of the stopper in your kitchen sink, I suggest you stop reading now.

Still there? Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

This past Sunday I discovered a whole new world.  A multi-coloured world... of mould.  Yes, mould.  Let's see, we had grey, greenish-grey, blue, black, blue-black, orange, pink, and -- get ready for it -- a gooey, putrid white the likes of which I have never seen before. 

Where was this kaleidoscope land? In my bathroom; the drains mostly.

Before I go on, I should say that I am not a messy or dirty person. I keep my apartment tidier than most, and I clean regularly. It's just that I can't keep up with the plumbing here. In fact, it is quite possibly the one thing I truly HATE about my home in Japan.

I am used to certain things in a drain. I am used to metal pipes. I am used to airlocks and actual drainage. I am not used to plastic pipes with interlocking pieces that come apart and provide little nooks for things to grow. I am not used to constant pools of water that keep things wet and moist and collect scum just under where I stand to brush my teeth everyday.  I am not used to coming home from a holiday and smelling strange stinks because things have grown due to a lack of running water.  Appetizing, huh?

I spent at least two hours just cleaning the drains in my bathroom this weekend.  There are three.  The sink and the tub both connect to a larger one in the middle of the floor.  

The tub drain was the easiest to take care of. I keep a filter on it to prevent hair from going down, so it just needed a good scrub.  There was some mould inside, but it was all reachable with my sponge.  

The sink drain was horrible.  I removed the little metal filter with my fingers, only to discover a horrid, white slime.  It was inside the drain, coating two strange holes on the sides, just before the main pipe. It was almost a centimetre thick in some parts, smelly and it covered some more familiar blue-black stuff underneath. I had to scoop it out with my sponge. Gag!

The main drain was horrendous. I could see the black stuff around the top and lifted out the top cover to give it a good scrub, as I normally do. I was tipped off just days earlier to the fact that the drain could actually be taken apart even further and so after some investigating, I found that I could twist and lift the inner cylinder out. I was almost sorry I did. Inside, was the pool of never draining water full of grey sludge, and hair, and other things best left unidentified. The exterior of the cylinder was covered in some flaky grey stuff I could chip off. All of the pieces were given a good soak and scrub.  Anything that looked like it could be scooped out was, and tossed in a garbage bag.  I threw in several drain cleaning tablets and prayed.  

My bathroom is sparkling clean now.  But only for a few minutes, I'm sure.  

Strawberry Fields Forever

Ever have strawberries for lunch?  And no, I don't mean a few on the side, or added to a salad, or even baked in a pie. I mean just strawberries. Plump and juicy, plucked fresh. And, all you can eat.

Apparently, it's a thing in Japan.  People go "strawberry picking" here. But they don't really mean picking. They mean eating, devouring, stuffing-your-face-to-the-point-of-nearly-vomiting.

Okay, I may be making it sound bad.  It's not.  It's lots of strange and confusing fun.  Basically, you pay a flat fee (prices differ depending on the time of year), and you have 30 minutes to wander around a greenhouse and eat as many berries as you possibly can.  I managed about 36 -- it's a rough number because I was laughing so hard, I kept forgetting to count.

Number one was so juicy and sweet. Amazing! Two to 17 were average, some sweeter than others, but all generally good. 18 to 22 were superb! Strawberry 28 was the best I've ever tasted. I thought 31 would be my last, but then the condensed milk arrived and so I had 5 more for dessert.

Kirei Japan

Maybe it's because I came expecting to find beauty that it seems to appear everywhere in Japan. But, it's not always in the most likely places.  Yes, Miyajima, Matsushima and Nikko were pretty, but it is the momentary glimpses that are the most breathtaking.  

A full moon with a misty halo hanging above the school soccer field.  A bright red torii gate just beyond a turn in the road.  White cranes in a green rice field set against the jagged mountains, grey in the distance. Even the cabbages with their outer leaves tied up in librarian-style looking buns  are endearing.

Yesterday, Reina and I were biking to the train station.  "ORANGES!" she yelled as we turned a corner. And there, over a dull, stone wall, hundreds of bright spheres and lush green leaves filled the sky.

My favourite is the persimmons in late fall.  Dark, gnarled trees, looking lifeless after having shed all their leaves, with plump, orange globes hanging from every branch.  

Now, I watch as other knotty trees spring to life.  White, and pink, and fuchsia blossoms like Christmas lights cover every limb and infuse the air with their sweet perfume.   

I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

On Japanese Plumbing

Question:  How do you know when the bathroom is overdue for a cleaning?

Answer:  When whatever it is that lives in the drains starts to show its face outside.
Oy, what is that?!?!?!

おしりかじり虫 !

Name: Oshiri Kajiri Mushi
Translation: Bottom Biting Bug
Ocupation: Biting bums

Occupation?  Okay, go with it.  Everyone else here seems to. And really, it is pretty fun stuff.  The bug-eyed guy with the four sharp teeth for chomping on ass seems fairly popular here right now.

I was first compelled to find out more about this creature because of one teacher who sits across for me in the staff room who is constantly singing the first bit of this ditty in a super cutesy voice.  It got me curious.

A friend posted this link weeks ago on Facebook and I had been sharing this video there, but it just didn't feel like enough.  So, here it is for all the folks back home - a taste of what is cool in Japan.  (Well, this and those great green sweatshirts that say, "Passing Fad" on them.)

I will also post a link for a website with some information about the origins of this little monster.  It's a cute story about a husband and wife team and their kitchen encounter.

Check out the PingMag story.

Monkeys!

I recall a deep, philosophical question once posed by a group of musically inclined young lads while pondering the possible ways in which large sums of money could be spent to promote amorous relations. I believe the exact words were, “Haven’t you always wanted a monKEY?”

Hey, who hasn’t? Cute and loveable, almost like mini versions of human beings. Trouble too, mind you, but that’s all part of the fun.

Realistically though, owning a monkey is probably not a good idea for most of us. It’s probably a very, very bad idea. So, the next best thing is socializing with monkeys in a snowy mountaintop setting.

“Where can you do this?” you ask. In Nagano, Japan.

On Saturday, I joined Caitlin, the queen of day trips, and two other friends for a trek to Yudanaka to see wild snow monkey’s at the monkey onsen. It was quite the journey. It was long, and a tad costly too.

Local trains from Ota to Takasaki (with a switch in Isesaki) – 700 yen
Bullet train from Takasaki to Nagano city – 4,410 yen
Local train to Yudanaka – 1,230 yen
Bus to Monkey Park – 250 yen

That’s 6,590 yen one way, or almost $64 Canadian. But hey, how else can you hang out with monkeys? And the ticket in to the Jigokudani (Monkey) Park was only 500 yen.

The truth is, I am not the best candidate for such an adventure. I am slightly afraid of most animals, including my cat some of the time. I freaked out for about 3 weeks this past July after Noah made me hand-feed a squirrel that scratched me.

But the monkeys were amazing! Even spotting them in the distance was a thrill. These lucky little monkeys managed a long time ago to take over a natural onsen and spend their winters soaking in hot water and being on display for tourists of all kinds.

I couldn’t believe how close you could get to these little creatures. You could see the wrinkles on their knuckles, their sunburned faces, the pinpoint pupils in their yellow eyes. And teeth. Despite all my attempts to stay safe, I managed to provoke an aggressive little guy into snarls and a wide-mouthed display of his chompers. I escaped unscathed. (Well, except for the giant bruise on my backside from the fall I took on the icy path back to the bus stop.)

You’re not allowed to actually reach out and touch the monkeys but they are allowed to touch people. Every once in a while a baby would poke a tourist or even leap up and latch on hoping for a bite of button or some other snack-like accessory. My friends handled this well. I don’t know that I would have.

http://www.jigokudani-yaenkoen.co.jp/livecam/monkey/index.htm - This link should take you to a live camera of the monkey onsen.

Here are some more pictures of this winter adventure.

On Daikon

How do you know when this root is ready to be harvested and devoured? These veggies seem to communicate in not so subtle ways that they’ve had it with their soiled home.

And, if you leave them long enough, your daikon might just get up and walk away.

A pain in the mouth

Ah, relief, mixed with confusion, mixed with fatigue.

I finally made it all the way to Takasaki yesterday to see the dentist. I was up at a good hour, rode my bike in the sunshine and didn’t get lost on my walk from the station to her office.

The dentist was friendly, professional and quick. Cheap too. It was less than my last appointment.

On arrival, I explained the cracked tooth situation and how the filling came out, etc. and relayed the advice of my dentist. What was strange is the fact that she seemed reluctant to do anything. I had to tell her several times that it hurts when I eat before she decided to fill something with the recommended filler. I found this odd because my dentist at home seemed to think a cracked tooth is pretty serious business and warned me to take action in order to avoid a root canal.

The dentist here explained that the crack was very small and on the corner of my tooth… again strange because I was told it was a risk of splitting to the nerve, no just resulting in a little chip off the side.

I was told to be careful. Apparently, without drilling a deeper hole, which she didn’t want to do because she didn’t want to remove any of my enamel, the filling is just, kinda resting there. Hmm, so maybe this is why the last one fell out after all and it had nothing to do with the quality of the work. Could it have been my fault over-doing the flossing?

The other thing is, and it will take a few days for me to decide if it was just my imagination or not, my tooth may have hurt just the tiniest little bit when I was eating breakfast this morning. Just a mini pinch.

But, you know what? Regardless, I have had enough with dentists here. I am giving up. It’s simply too difficult to try and communicate about this. So, whether it’s the actual crack that was looked after, or some wee chip on the side, I don’t care… along as most of me gets home in one piece.

So, I went with friends to Kawagoe today. It’s a city famous for it’s candy. Take that teeth!

Click here for photos from my trip to Kawagoe and other spring outings.

Cracked tooth, broken dream

Okay, no broken dreams here. I made that title up just for effect. And, I thought it was a pretty good segue from my last post. Unfortunately, the bit about the cracked tooth is true.

I have strange teeth. Aside from the fact that they are a little small for my head, I mean. Not a single cavity to date in my adult set of teeth, but they chip and break and do annoying things like that. (And yes, before anyone starts theorizing about the reason for this, I do grind my teeth a little and my dentist at home takes good care of me.)

A few years ago I actually managed to crack a tooth. It was a molar on the lower, left side, one from the back. A quick trip to the dentist and I was patched up as good as almost new and on my way again.

Fast forward to Japan, January 2008.

Ouch!

I’m eating and I have a quick, sharp pain on the left side. Strangely reminiscent of something, but what? It happens when I bite down on things with little grainy bits, like sugar crystals, or salt and pepper, or even curry powder. I find myself peering, with gapping jaw, into mirrors and worrying.

Around the same time my friend Bahia loses a crown and is talking lots about finding a dentist here in Japan. I can’t put this tooth thing out of my mind. I decide to get it checked out.

“I have a problem,” I tell my supervisor one Thursday. I tell him I have a toothache and I need help finding a dentist. I arrange for my friend Reina to join me as my interpreter and my supervisor books me in for an appointment after work on Monday.

My attempts to get lost on the way to the dental clinic are futile and Reina and I arrive five minutes early. We fill out the requisite paperwork and wait. Once in the chair, the dentist checks things out, does a quick x-ray and tells me I have a filling in the tooth I am complaining about. That, and a little redness around the gums, but he figures a quick touchup of the filling and I should be in good shape. A little polishing; a touch of drilling so light, it was more like sanding; and a tiny dab of filing stuff, and I am sent on my way. Thanks to a great insurance policy, it only costs me about $16 out of pocket. To thank Reina, and test out the repair, I treat to sushi.

Later that night I start on my regular bedtime routine. PJs, check; e-mail, check; bathroom, check; brushing, check; drink of water, check; flossing… Flossing doesn’t go so well. See, where the little dental touchup was done, I can’t get the floss in between the teeth.

Just… a… little… pushing… and… THERE!

I get the floss in and struggle to get it back out. And, when it finally does come out, it brings white stuff out with it. Meh, it could just be some residue that got packed in there. No worries. The next day I inform my supervisor that everything is great in the tooth department.

Ouch!

Oh god, the pain is back. I am embarrassed. I don’t want to go back to my supervisor for help, or bother Reina again because she’s very busy. Maybe it’s all in my head.

Ouch!

Nope, it’s real. I tell my parents about the problem and ask them to check with my dentist at home to confirm about the location of this old, cracked tooth. My memory is fuzzy and I want to be sure I’m not imagining things. Sure enough, it’s the cracked molar from years ago. This isn’t good. And, I manage to worry my parents sufficiently enough that they decide to mail me a small tube of toothpaste from home that arrives at school in an envelope filled with bubble wrap and oozy, gooey toothpaste. My desk smells minty fresh now.

Tomorrow will be attempt number two. I’ve decided to try Bahia’s English speaking dentist in Takasaki. I am going armed with better knowledge of what the problem actually is this time, and some treatment recommendations from my favourite dentist back home. I am hopping on the train and devoting an entire Saturday to looking after this annoying tooth.

Oh, and did I mention I am slightly afraid of visiting dentists, particularly new ones? That’s why I am still up at 2:00 writing about this rather than sleeping. And, I’m pondering… Is the “Fluoriguard” in my made-for-Japan Colgate anything like real fluoride?