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Another day with bad air quality - do you open your windows ?
In this weather - do you open your windows for fresh air (with the air purifier running!), or do you just keep the purifier running 24/7 and everything closed?
I grew up in the countryside where we keep windows open a lot for fresh air, I have this non stop urge to open my windows but I am not sure if people raised in cities with similar air quality will think that's crazy.
honestly i just keep everything closed and run the purifier on auto. opening windows when it's 65+ pm2.5 feels counterproductive, like you're just letting the bad stuff back in. the purifier is gonna work harder to clean that air anyway
i do crack windows at night sometimes during winter when the pm2.5 drops under 30, but that's rare in central Tokyo. summer is rough, that smell you noticed is prob ozone mixing with pollution, it's nasty. if you really need airflow, get a mesh screen for your window and only open it after 2am when traffic dies down, that's when readings tend to be lowest near my place in Setagaya
the urge never fully goes away but you do stop noticing after a while. i've been here 8 years and i barely think about it anymore, just check the app when i'm deciding whether to hang laundry out
I run the purifier 24/7 and only crack the window for a few minutes right after a good rain when the PM2.5 drops under 30. Otherwise it's just recirculating the same dirty air through the filter, which is better than nothing but feels wasteful. The urge to open windows is real though, I lived in Hokkaido for a bit and came back to Tokyo feeling like I was suffocating. You get used to it, but it takes a couple seasons.
yeah i gave up on opening windows for the most part, even with the purifier running it feels like i'm just wasting electricity. i live near a main road so the noise alone is enough to keep them shut, but on the rare days when the AQI dips below 50 i'll open them for like 10 minutes before bed just to air out the apartment. the urge is real though, i still catch myself reaching for the window out of habit sometimes
Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.
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