Laundry

My apartment this year has a front-loading washing machine.  It took me quite a while to figure out how to even open it, since I can't read the directions or controls well enough. After trying to pull it open, rotate it before pulling, and other release methods, I decided to get clever and look at the controls. I immediately saw one button not associated with any other buttons, lights, or pictures, and sure enough, that was it. I had three weeks of dirty laundry from here and in LA ready to go, and few clean clothes left, so laundry crisis averted now that I can use the thing. A couple days ago I pulled out the ol' Korean-English dictionary and made an attempt at decipering all the settings and such on the panel. It was quite a lot of work, and involved some deduction, but I think I have a reasonable handle on it.

I'm not sure yet if I'm a fan.

Pros:

It's smaller, so now I don't feel wasteful washing only a small load of clothes, and it also allows me to sort colors now that I can fill the whole thing with darks or brights.

I can watch the laundry spin round and round... Ooooooh...

It has a spin dry cycle, so my clothes aren't soaking wet when I pull them out. Less dry time=good.

There are lots of very specific cycle settings, like towels, linens, curtains, lingerie, etc.

Cons:

It takes forever to wash a load. I think the shortest amount of time is nearly an hour and a half.

I have to buy a special detergent and it's around 50% more expensive than the regular kind, if I recall correctly what I paid last year. I do have to use slightly less, but I think in the end it's still pricier.

I'm not quite sure into which basin in a drawer with three choices I'm supposed to put the detergent. I'm worried.

It's really loud and vibratey. I can't really hear it if I slide the glass door shut, but I keep the window open out on the balcony (where the washer is), so I imagine the neighbors can hear it loud and clear. When it's doing its spin dry at the end, it really seems like it's going to either explode or burst into flight.

The first load I did was brights, and despite having put them in a washing machine before with no problem, somehow my retardly expensive underwear from Vietnam got the color sucked out of them and distributed as a dingy greyish or bright pink into anything more porous than cotton that was in the load. So once again, foreign clothing is responsible for ruining a bunch of my clothes. What a hassle.