shirenomad | Japan's indoor plumbing fails to impress me.

It was just my luck that I picked the apartment with the broken bathroom sink. The drain pipe leaks. I didn't have too much of a problem with this, because there's a drain in the floor (I don't know the details, but evidently a traditional Japanese bath is performed largely outside the tub somehow), so most of the water doesn't stick around to mildew. Nonetheless, it was splashing my feet more often than not, so I finally mentioned it to the program coordinator. Begin the game of pass-the-buck. Her first call is to her husband, who comes in the next day, has a look at it, declares it out of his league, and calls a local handyman to come in the next day. The handyman looks at it, fiddles with it a bit, can't get anywhere, and calls a professional plumbing agency. Who will be there the next day. The plumbers come in, physically remove the drain pipe to get a better look at it, and find the problem... only they won't have the part they need for a week or two. They apologize and say they'll be back then (at least I think that's what they said), then leave. Failing to reinstall the pipe. Mind, the faucet is such so that I can swivel it to empty over the tub instead of the sink (which is what the handyman recommended I do while waiting for the plumbers), so this isn't quite as big a deal as it sounds, but still... Sometimes I wonder if they decided to get a laugh at the American's expense.

On a side note, why isn't the LJ client installing properly on Win ME?