Will Miss #537 - lack of sprinklers

You can't tell, but these were in Okubo in Tokyo along Ome Kaido Avenue. Yeah, flowers pretty much look like flowers everywhere.

California, where I'm currently living, is in the grips of a long drought. This is a unique experience for me as I lived in a place that had what appeared to be five seasons. The fifth one was "the rainy season, of which there actually appeared to be a major and a minor one. Water was rarely in short supply. In fact, I heard one year that the collection tanks in Tokyo were in danger of being so over-full that floods were a possibility.

At any rate, despite the lack of water in California, people seem to be good with watering their lawns on a regular basis. This is somewhat irritating, but not nearly as annoying as the fact that the automatic sprinklers that they use to do so seem to spend as much of their precious liquids on the sidewalks as they do on the grass. I like to walk and it's very, very common to have to side-step sprinkler systems that are sending rivers of water down the streets and threatening to douse passersby.

In Tokyo, I never had to deal with this. Even in areas with artificially maintained greenery (such as the government building that was not too far from my home), they seemed capable of making the water hit the spots it was supposed to and keep it off of the ones it didn't belong in (like the streets and sidewalks). I very much miss the lack of obtrusive and wasteful lawn sprinklers.

Will Miss #534 - not having to run the cold water

There are habits that you get into for a good portion of your life that you can forget that you ever had if you've been away from them long enough. I'm not talking about unforgettable things like smoking or compulsively turning around three times and whistling "Dixie" before you turn the door knob for fear that the boogie man will be on the other side if you don't. Not that I've ever done that...

I'm talking about things like growing up in the Northeast and having to run your defrosters on your car such that doing so is second nature or remembering to take an umbrella in Tokyo because it's the rainy season. One habit which I had completely forgotten about which was a regular part of life in the U.S. was the way in which you've got to run the tap on the cold water for awhile every time you need water for drinking. This is necessary because you have to flush the pipes in case lead has accumulated. It's not only annoying, but wasteful, and where I'm living at present is in an extended drought so it feels especially so.

The reason that you don't have to run the water in Japan is that they don't use copper or lead in their pipes. They use stainless steel. When I lived there, I didn't have to stand around running the water before I could drink it and I miss that. 

Will Miss #515 - reliability of utilities

I've lived in my apartment in California for only 6 months, and have already experienced one utility-based problem. The water was shut off for a period of two hours to do some sort of maintenance. I was given a 24-hour notice of this fact 19 hours before the shut-off occurred and it was actually off for closer to 2 1/2 hours. This isn't such a big deal except for the fact that when the water did return, it came out sputtering and brown. It took a lot of allowing it to run and nearly two hours of time before it cleared up, and even then I wasn't sure that it was safe to drink.

It has been my experience both from my upbringing and my short return that things like power outages and utility interruptions are far more common in the U.S. than in Japan. Part of the issue is that the lines often cover more space and are underground due to the widespread nature of homes and services. Another, in my opinion, is that Americans are less diligent about maintaining such things. In Japan, the utilities companies react relatively quickly to small problems, and, on the rare occasion that there is a disruption, you are smartly informed both of the moment it goes off and the moment it goes back on. 

In 23 years of living in Tokyo, power flickered briefly a couple of times, but never went off for any length of time and water was only ever stopped when I had a question about the cost of my bill and they needed to check for leaks. The utilities there were incredibly reliable and I miss that. 

Won't Miss #455 - cold water

Sometimes having to use a short title really forces me to mislead the reader. I know there is "cold water" everywhere in the world. In fact, there's more cold than hot because it comes naturally in that state. What I'm talking about is the possibility of warm water in places like public restrooms or even in offices. When I first came to Japan, some of my foreign coworkers told me that the places they lived in had no hot running water for dish washing in the kitchen. It wasn't until I returned to the U.S. and encountered hot water in "strange" places like publicly accessible places (markets, libraries, restaurants, and plain old public toilets) that I remembered that only being able to wash your hands with cold water was much more prevalent in Japan than in the U.S. It's ironic that you can often get hot water for your ass (via washlets), but not for your hands, in Japan.

I won't miss freezing my digits off when washing my hands in Japan. 

Won't Miss #229 - expensive, unpleasant water

Water in Tokyo is pretty expensive. In fact, it's sufficiently expensive that some Japanese people use their old bathwater to do laundry. My water bills recently went up 20% for no reason that I could work out, so I've taken to trying to save water by turning the shower water on and off when I can in order to cut back on water use. Of course, I usually do this in the summer when it's warm anyway for environmental reasons, but it's something I do now in the cooler months as well because I don't want to pay more than I already do for water. It doesn't make for the most comfortable shower when it'd cold given the poor insulation and cold tile in my bath area. It's not like the water is even "good". Sure, it's safe, but it really does stink like Chlorine, especially when it's hot. Nearly everyone has to filter water to make it less unpleasant to drink or simply drink bottled water.

Perhaps I'm spoiled having grown up with free water, and drinking clear, fresh, clean spring water, but I won't miss the expensive, highly chemically-influenced water in Tokyo.

Won't Miss #68 - uchimizu

Uchimizu is the practice of pouring water on the ground, street or the sidewalk in order to keep dust down or cool the pavement in summer. Originally, this practice was done using collected water from rain and had some spiritual significance in addition to being utilitarian. However, in Tokyo, the effect of pouring a bucket or two of water on the sidewalk is about as useful as a nail file is in cutting down a tree trunk when it comes to cutting the heat or dust. What is more though, many people who practice uchimizu do it in ways which are troublesome or gross. A lot of them throw their dirty cleaning water which sometimes smells foul or moldy onto the street. Others stand outside with a hose, wasting clean water and impeding the ability of pedestrians and cyclists to travel past their pointless gushing.

I won't miss this quaint past-time which has turned into a bit of a nuisance.