Will Miss #539 - the sound of Japanese sirens

This is, obviously, not my video, but this type of siren is very close to the ones I heard. The pitch is different, but it is otherwise the same.

I seem to have had the misfortune of living not too far from a street that is close to a fire station both in Tokyo and in California. That means that I hear more than my fair share of sirens going off. One of the things that I have come to really hate in the U.S. is the sound of the sirens. They seem stretched out, harsh, and like an electronic scream.

On the other hand, the sirens in Japan, while far from a pleasant experience, sound closer to that of a toy. They sound (at least to me) like they are based on British sirens and tend to have less of a "screaming" effect and more of an alarm one. The ones I heard regularly (there are variations) were almost musical.

The obnoxiousness of the sirens I hear in the U.S. have made me actually long for hearing Japanese sirens again.