Doing Laundry the Postmodern Way
October 24th, 2006 by MarkMy search for a laundromat hasn’t been easy since moving to Zhōngxiào Dūnhuà. This area is way too upscale for its own good. There are about 8 laundromats within a reasonable walk from where I live, but seven are dry-cleaners. That means they want $40 per item of clothing, and that it would cost me about $1300 per week to do my laundry. That’s as much as some people living in cheaper areas pay for rent! Obviously, there’s no way I’m going to pay that kind of money just to wash my clothes. The remaining laundromat is one that charges by the kilogram, $200 per kilogram. As I figure it, I have about 4 kilograms of clothes to do each week. While 800 bucks beats 1300, and they’ll fold the clothes for me, I still can’t afford that kind of craziness.
After having spent over two hours walking the neighborhoods near my house, I came to the frustrating conclusion that taking a friggin’ taxi to the nearest coin-op laundromat, washing my clothes there, and taking a taxi back would be cheaper than using any of the places within walking distance. Most coin-op laundromats charge $60-80 for the washer and about $80 for the dryer. Add a couple of $70 cab rides to that, and I’d only be at $300 bucks (about 10 USD) for the lot of it.
Then I got to thinking… There’s a laundromat right by the MRT at Yŏngchūn zhàn. I only live a three minute walk from Zhōngxiào Dūnhuà zhàn. Since it’s only three stops away, I could just take the subway to the laundromat, wash my clothes and come back. At only $20 each way on the subway, I do all my laundry for $200 (about 6 USD) a week. Not bad at all, especially considering the total commute is only 15 minutes or so.
As I was explaining to my friend how I did my laundry, the first the he said was, “You take the subway to wash your clothes? How post-modern.” I guess it is.
:
October 24th, 2006 at 10:48 am
… You know, those machines they have at the laundry matt come in smaller ‘at home’ sizes.
I didn’t have one when I was in Okinawa because I knew I’d be moving after about 9 months, so I had to do all my laundry by hand in the bathtub. Which wasn’t so bad actually because I got to use hot water on the whites (the plugs for washers in Japan don’t have access to hot water, only ice water.)
However now I have one now and it’s definitely better then doing things by hand in the tub. And if necessary, I can fill a bucket with hot water and throw it in the machine if I want.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
Since I just have one bedroom and bathroom, there’s nowhere to put a washing machine. We don’t have one in the apartment at all, actually, since the landlady believes in washing by hand.
October 24th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
The time is now:
We called the Harbin place. he says he’s open every day but Mondays (yeah, right). He also said we should call and make a reservation at least a couple of days in advance, especially if we have several people in our party, which it seems we certainly will.
So I’d like to delegate to you the task of getting a head count. We’re game any day. Shall we shoot for Saturday night? If so, Spicygirl can make the reservation on Thursday, once you get me the number of confirmed…
October 25th, 2006 at 4:42 am
I invited Mark S. to it. Let’s go next Tuesday night.