Laundry in Japan

I was chatting with one of my friends online today and I was describing to her my laundry situation. She was having trouble envisioning what I was describing. so I am going to take some pictures.

Laundry is a pain generally, no matter what culture you live in. and really, I think my kids and I own too many clothes. In fact today I plan a purge of all things that have not been used/worn/looked at since we have moved here. I am not sure if that is fair exactly, since I have been pregnant almost the entire time I have been in Japan. but seriously, I wear so little of it that its time to purge.
I don’t have a dryer. everyone knows that laundry is a 5 step process, here it is mapped out:
1) collect laundry. this can be challenging if its not done on a daily basis. I look in my laundry room (which I am SUPER LUCKY to have btw) and see no laundry and think I am all caught up. Only to find a mountain of clothes hiding somewhere in the girls room or my husband has come home from work and dumped a bunch out from his 3 day trips that I was unaware of.
2) sort and wash. easy enough. but first of course you must treat any potential stains, make sure the water temp is right, etc. I am lucky, in Japan I actually have HOT WATER for my laundry. its only because we are hooked up next to a sink, which I chose instead of the actual hook up on the wall, but it stays the same temp the whole time.
3) Hang laundry up. depending on the weather, I will hang outside or inside. when I have thought that there would be no rain, I have had to jump up in the middle of the night to rescue my laundry from getting resoaked while it hung outside. yep. literally in the middle of the night.
4) fold clothes, again not to difficult, I try and do it in front of the TV and do it mindlessly…
5) PUT CLOTHES AWAY. this is what I suck at. though I figure its better to have things clean and folded, this final step always escapes me. we are always going through the clean clothes hamper, or let me be really honest, taking it off the hook.

But let me give you a visual of just why laundry is such a massive struggle for me.  Because my laundry room is 2 ft by 4 ft, I can’t hang it up there.  when its pouring outside (typhoon coming today) I have to hang it inside.  and each night you gamble if you do leave it outside because more than once I have been caught in the middle of the night running downstairs frantically taking in laundry that had been left outside to “dry”.  when its not “suppose” to rain that night.  the last typhoon I washed “big items” like a comforter, and it was ohsoclose to being dry until the rain hit and soaked it and I had to rewash the whole damn thing.

One thing that drives me NUTS is that my living room functions basically as my laundry room.  my pole sits outside, but I end up putting it on the curtain rod so it continues to dry.  not a lot of sunshine, and the clothes quickly accumulate.  there is no fast easy way to do laundry here unless I take it to the laundromat and pay 100 yen per 10 minutes of drying.  geepers, if only Doug and I could get that at our mat

so here is a visual of laundry at my house.  I feel sorry for me.  5 people’s laundry I am responsible for…

So this is my laundry “room”.  also the back door, last stop before garbage heads out the door.  its very small, its also a partial storage room for the dog food and other misc that ends up there. I would love to finish out my laundry today, but alas, I have used up all four of my hangers and its raining so I need to take a break until things are dry.  hopefully tomorrow. I do also cloth diaper, which is a bit challenging when its raining.  but usually they are dry within 24 hours if its not raining, pretty decent for just hang drying.  and it preserves my diapers for long by not using a dryer.

I have no idea how to flip pictures the right way on this thing…sorry….

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