A decade ago, Bradley Krae left the United States to teach English in Shenzhen, China. He spends less money and says the has found his own version of the American Dream there.
i’m swedish. we generally don’t treat our water at all, it just goes straight from well to tap. the exception is large cities like stockholm that need to use surface water instead of groundwater, and they use artificial infiltration systems followed by uv-disinfection (or ozone, don’t remember which). the water in stockholm also tastes weird to me, but it’s completely drinkable. every time i visit family in north america and forget about the chlorine thing i get a shock.
Interesting. Definitely rings true with my hypothesis on this stuff though. I guess I’d say the taste difference is real. But, having traveled a lot I’d also say that if you “give it a shot” for a couple days your tastes adjust pretty quickly. It’s been my stubborn choice to not buy bottled water that taught me this.
Not to say that some countries may have worse regulations or focus on “more natural” taste priorities. That’s definitely true. But I wouldn’t let the worry of the water being “unsafe” exaggerate those natural feelings.
I’d be more concerned about some small city in America (Flint Michigan being our obvious newsworthy one) than any major city. Though Flint was unrelated to filtration standards and literally just a refusal to remove ancient lead pipe infrastructure.
Though I definitely do trust European standards and regulations more than an American. For the time being, our major cities are still running on proven standards for health and filtration though.
i’ve definitely experienced the “getting used to it” thing in other countries, but unfortunately the throat swelling is a physical reaction to chlorine. i also can’t go in swimming pools without goggles or i get covered in blisters. on the skin it’s fine but if it touches a mucous membrane i’m fucked. also forgot about that when i first took a shower after landing in bc a few years ago, which was a fun time.
i’m swedish. we generally don’t treat our water at all, it just goes straight from well to tap. the exception is large cities like stockholm that need to use surface water instead of groundwater, and they use artificial infiltration systems followed by uv-disinfection (or ozone, don’t remember which). the water in stockholm also tastes weird to me, but it’s completely drinkable. every time i visit family in north america and forget about the chlorine thing i get a shock.
Interesting. Definitely rings true with my hypothesis on this stuff though. I guess I’d say the taste difference is real. But, having traveled a lot I’d also say that if you “give it a shot” for a couple days your tastes adjust pretty quickly. It’s been my stubborn choice to not buy bottled water that taught me this.
Not to say that some countries may have worse regulations or focus on “more natural” taste priorities. That’s definitely true. But I wouldn’t let the worry of the water being “unsafe” exaggerate those natural feelings.
I’d be more concerned about some small city in America (Flint Michigan being our obvious newsworthy one) than any major city. Though Flint was unrelated to filtration standards and literally just a refusal to remove ancient lead pipe infrastructure.
Though I definitely do trust European standards and regulations more than an American. For the time being, our major cities are still running on proven standards for health and filtration though.
i’ve definitely experienced the “getting used to it” thing in other countries, but unfortunately the throat swelling is a physical reaction to chlorine. i also can’t go in swimming pools without goggles or i get covered in blisters. on the skin it’s fine but if it touches a mucous membrane i’m fucked. also forgot about that when i first took a shower after landing in bc a few years ago, which was a fun time.