Japanese Clothes Washer Tutorial

I had to have a friend come over and help me because I only understood 1 of the kanjis and the start button. Turns out it is very easy to use.

Picture 1 shoes the top buttons. The big square button is the power button. You can push it first. Picture 2 has a close-up of the dial to the left of the power button. It has the water levels. It is currently set on high. The next Kanji to the left is medium. The Next one is less and the last one to the left is low water - erm....probably a few drops of water I would imagine

Picture 3 shows the cycle options. My friend said all you have to do after the power is on and you selected the water level is push the "sutaato" (start) button on the right and in picture 4. Pic 5 of course is just a close-up of the drum.

As soon as you start putting clothes in you see that the inside of the washer is really loose. The weight of the clothes causes the drum to go back and forth as if it itself is sitting in a tub of water. The drum only spins during the spin cycles. When it is in wash mode it just kind of lazily shakes to the right and then to the left. This shaking (not the best word to describe the action)causes the water to whirl around once and brings the clothes along with it. I took a quick video with my cell phone but it has an .amc file extension that as far as I can tell only plays with VLC media player.

The washer either has two wash cycles or 2 rinse cycles. I found this out the hard way because I put the softener in too early. The tub drained after the first "rinse" cycle and then completely filled up again. The clothes were extra soft :P The entire experience for 1 load took about 45 minutes. As I didn't have to get out blood or ink or something crazy, I was pretty happy with how clean everything was. Considering that we are a family of 4 and I was only able to wash 2 shirts, a tank top and a pair of sweatpants in that one load, I think we will go pay for the washers and driers on-base from now on.