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Van Life in Japan

kumazen.com

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Re: Van Life in Japan

#61

Post by uoaei »

TurboHaskal wrote: post #4

> We usually don’t bathe every day and listen to our body’s needs. If I did this I'd need to shower every 4h :)

I've reduced my skin and scalp's dependence on soap and shampoo, and now a vigorous rinse in a hot shower gets me 95% clean. I do use a mild (minimal glycerin content) soap on sensitive parts. Whatever it is that accumulates on my body over time has become less oil-based (more water-based) and after some time in hot water begins mixing (emulsifying?) so that I become clean.

This helps you to live with a healthy skin microbiome that is effective at maintaining itself. I can easily skip a shower for a day and be fine, because the buggies living on my skin help manage the population of bacteria and yeasts that ultimately contribute to smells, pleasant or otherwise.

However the transition from Western-style harmful hygiene practices (harsh soaps, extreme obsession) back to a more normal baseline can take a while, and requires being a little gross as your body re-learns to manage itself without such drastic outside measures as strong surfactants.

tl;dr your skin and scalp easily develop an unhealthy dependence on external soaps, resulting in a chronic inability to manage skin microbe populations, which means you're covered in uncontrolled colonies of stinky microbes until your next shower. Let your body handle it and it will manage those populations itself.

Re: Van Life in Japan

#62

Post by uoaei »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20
petodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm living in apartment and shower twice a week (at least in winter). Never understood obsession with daily shower as seen is American movies, no wonder Americans have extreme water consumption, I wonder how common is eczema and skin diseases over there compared to countries which shower less. EDIT: instead of downvoting rather prove me wrong, do you think Americans don't have extreme water consumption? US water cons…

If you do any physical work, you get sweaty, sweat means bacteria, means bad smell. Some of us don't like to stink, also don't like our beds to stink.

It's really not that simple. The bacteria that live on my skin don't stink like that after a lot of exercise.

Re: Van Life in Japan

#63

Post by uoaei »

bitwize wrote: post #38
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do any physical work, you get sweaty, sweat means bacteria, means bad smell. Some of us don't like to stink, also don't like our beds to stink.

Hackernews told me that this is just another microbiome that needs to be brought into balance, after which the smell goes away; and that soaps and shampoos disrupt that balance. As one who's hung out with bohemian vagabonds who didn't make a routine habit of bathing, my nose has told me otherwise. Nice people but... humans smell funny in general.

> humans smell funny in general

A fact of life that seems pointless to try to avoid.

One person's BO is another person's aphrodisiac. Biochemistry is fun, lean into it!

Re: Van Life in Japan

#64

Post by uoaei »

elbigbad wrote: post #24
joxel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So everyone else just smells like shit all the time in other countries? I smell like shit when I wake up in the morning, you wouldn't want to work next to me if I don't shower.

Not only from just existing, but between going to the gym a few days a week and doing regular cardio on other days, I just can’t imagine the absolute rank stink from not showering regularly. Once I thought I didn’t work up enough of a sweat weightlifting in the gym so went to bed when I got home, and the bed smelled like absolute trash the next day and neither me nor my partner could sleep there again without washing…

That's not sweat, that's the bacteria on your skin. Use less soap and change your diet and you will encourage more healthy skin microbiome that can even smell pleasant.

Re: Van Life in Japan

#65

Post by seszett »

ericmcer wrote: post #42
EngCanMan wrote: post #11

"An empty water bottle/adult diaper can become a luxury in the middle of the night to avoid putting on your clothes/shoes and exiting the van in the coldness" You lost me when adult diapers became a luxury.

Diaper is gross, but peeing in a bottle while sleeping in the car can be nice. Just roll over, pee, roll back over and fall asleep again. Much less intrusive than getting up and walking to the bathroom, dealing with bright lights, etc.

Peeing in a bottle while in bed is a tad more complicated for a woman.

Re: Van Life in Japan

#66

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

dieselgate wrote: post #44
ericmcer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diaper is gross, but peeing in a bottle while sleeping in the car can be nice. Just roll over, pee, roll back over and fall asleep again. Much less intrusive than getting up and walking to the bathroom, dealing with bright lights, etc.

Going in a bottle is not a solution for all of us unfortunately

There’s a device called a she-wee and many female vanlifers report success with Folgers tins or large fountain drink cups, which then get poured into a bottle.

Source: thevanlifecoach.com

Re: Van Life in Japan

#67

Post by yreg »

BryantD wrote: post #19

Lovely piece! Any thoughts on whether or not speaking Japanese would be a requirement? It would of course be the polite thing to do.

Not OP, but I traveled through Japan with a few friends before the pandemic and none of us speak Japanese. It's true that almost no one there speaks english. However, everyone we've encountered (especially the people working in the service industry) was super friendly and tried their best to be helpful. The public transport system is thought out and labeled very well, even in english + it plays well with Google Maps, so navigation was never an issue.

One thing that I didn't expect (although it makes perfect sense) is that OCR of Japanese writing is very bad compared to what we've got used to. Aiming a phone with Google Translate at some sign will often produce total garbage. You can attempt to transcribe the kanji with your finger and that usually gives better results, but is tedious and difficult (since the order of strokes matters and you have no clue about it). We've quickly learned a few crucial kanjis, e.g. 出口 for `exit`.

A tip for the restaurants that only offer japanese menu with no pictures: open the listing in Maps, browse through the photos and show the waiter a photo of the meal you would like.

Re: Van Life in Japan

#68

Post by whymauri »

EngCanMan wrote: post #11

"An empty water bottle/adult diaper can become a luxury in the middle of the night to avoid putting on your clothes/shoes and exiting the van in the coldness" You lost me when adult diapers became a luxury.

Just use a water bottle like the rest of us! I lived out of an Explorer for 3 months, not once did an adult diaper cross my mind.

Re: Van Life in Japan

#69

Post by kragen »

petodo wrote: post #5
TurboHaskal wrote: post #4

> We usually don’t bathe every day and listen to our body’s needs. If I did this I'd need to shower every 4h :)

I'm living in apartment and shower twice a week (at least in winter). Never understood obsession with daily shower as seen is American movies, no wonder Americans have extreme water consumption, I wonder how common is eczema and skin diseases over there compared to countries which shower less. EDIT: instead of downvoting rather prove me wrong, do you think Americans don't have extreme water consumption? US water cons…

household freshwater consumption in the usa is insignificant compared to irrigation freshwater consumption, so shower frequency is irrelevant; what matters is, roughly, bushels of rice produced per capita

Re: Van Life in Japan

#70

Post by yreg »

ym705 wrote: post #10
dusted wrote: post #3

Site seems down due to database error at the moment. https://web.archive.org/web/20230207112109/https://kumazen.c...

Thanks, just enabled cache and rebooted server

Thank you for the article, it is fascinating.
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