Laundry Day

Laundry day has always been Monday.  My grandma did laundry on Monday.  My mom always did laundry on Monday.  And I've always done laundry on Monday.  I still do laundry on Mondays, but the procedure is a little different now:

First, I fill up the bathtub with the hottest water it will let me have: 60 degrees celcius.

Then I put a hose in the tub that runs to the washing machine.

When the tub is full and the water is heated to the temperature I requested, a pleasant female voice tells me in Japanese that it's ready.  I fill the washer with clothes and put in the soap.

There are lots of buttons on this washing machine, and I'm sure it does a lot of fancy things.  But I only know how to do it one way.  The first day we were here, a man taught me how to get the water from the tub into the washing machine, and so that's how I always do it. 

You push three buttons and it pumps the water into the machine.  It ends up not really being that hot, but it's better than cold.

The dryer is above the washer.  It takes forever to dry clothes.

Every Japanese home has a place to hang clothes to dry.  Ours is in our front window.  Every week, I wash a lot of clothes by hand and hang them out there.  I'm noticing, now it's spring, many people are hanging clothes outside.  Everyone has special rods for this purpose. 

So laundry day is exciting in Japan!  It takes all day to get it done as the dryer takes so long.  It is very humid here, so things take a long time to dry.  But it's okay.  I kind of like laundry day.  Except for the ironing!  There is just a tiny tabletop ironing board.  The iron works well, but that tiny ironing board isn't very convenient.  But, honestly, I never liked ironing at home either.   Happy laundry day!