Japan during summer is hot and humid and sweaty. To say the least. Cool drinks and air conditioning feel essential for being comfortable. It would have been nice with a cool shower every now and then as well, but that is a little more tricky – during summer in Japan the hot water use is close to zero since the cold water from the tap is already pre heated. My son asks me to make the shower colder when the water coming out is as cold as it gets, and having a glass of refreshing water straight from the tap is an impossibility. For that however, there is a solution. In come the Japanese fridges.
While I would say still being quite a rather exclusive feature in Sweden, in Japan a built in ice maker is almost standard when buying a fridge/freezer appliance. You fill a water tank, put it in the refrigerator, and out come ice cubes in a separate drawer in the freezer. When we were living in Tokyo we did not have this kind of fancy fridge so instead, to my bewilderment as a new resident of Japan, my wife used to buy big bags of ice at the convenience store nearby. Moving to Fukuoka however, we got an ice making fridge and while it took me some time to get used to and appreciate this function, now I cannot imagine not having such a life saver during summer. My son also knows to appreciate the ice – he amuses himself with putting ice cubes in everything he drinks. To his parents’ amusement, sometimes he also puts ice cubes on his food to cool it down. And as long as he does not drop any ice cubes inside my shirt, I am happy for him to appreciate the wonders of our fridge.
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