Every Japanese Room I’ve Ever Lived In
If I were Queen Of The World, there would be a Japanese Complaints Choir* and they would sing about this. If anyone’s ever invented a more feeble excuse for a heating/cooling unit than the ones that supposedly make buildings in Japan habitable by humans, I never want to see it.
And while we’re complaining (because you’re totally nodding your head along with me in sympathy, right?) I also feel compelled to mention this:
It’s like they think putting a lot of buttons on the remote will make beleaguered users believe it’s their own damn fault for freezing to death. Like, “If I’d only been able to figure out how to use the combination of controls that adjust the angle of the fins while also disabling the feature that randomly switches to blasting unheated air around the room, I’d still have most of my toes.”
I’d say that I can’t wait for summer, but you know that diagram up above? Pretend it’s Opposite Day and you’ll get an idea of how pleasant August will be. grr.
*If you’ve never heard the Helsinki Complaints Choir, you should. Because hilarious.
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Jonelle Patrick View All
Writing mystery books set in Tokyo is mostly what I do, but I also blog about the odd stuff I see every day in Japan. I'm a graduate of Stanford University and the Sendagaya Japanese Institute in Tokyo, and a member of the International Thriller Writers, the Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters In Crime. When I'm not in Tokyo, I live in San Francisco. I also host a travel site called The Tokyo Guide I Wish I'd Had, so if you're headed to Japan and want to check out the places I take my friends when they're in town, take a look!
Jonelle Patrick's Only In Japan 
Aw, come on, Jonelle, man up! Everyone knows frostbite builds character.
I bow to your superior survival skills! m(_ _)m
Thou shalt also bow to the stumpy remains of my fingers.
But wait! That’s what makes the Japanese bath at the end of the day so delightful. When we got back to the States I thought I wanted a Japanese bathtub. But I realized it didn’t have any real appeal if you had spent all day in perfect ambient comfort.
You are SO right! Also, I’m sure you are among those who guessed that this post got written because I DON’T HAVE A KOTATSU. (♯｀∧´)
The heater/AC in my bedroom shuts off as soon as I try to adjust anything. And the shutdown process is just
so
slow.
Yeah, I didn’t even get to complaining about THAT. (+_+) How they can make something SO INADEQUATE is beyond me. And this is on top of the baffling design of Japanese buildings that makes them colder inside than outside in the winter and hotter inside than outside in the summer (a real feat, believe me.)
The base here was built on a military budget: I know about the heating problems all too well. :C (I can’t draw a stronger frowny face)
(*｀へ´*) (♯｀∧´) (｀血´)