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Comment by p1mrx | Hacker News Reader

I once wandered around Singapore for a few days, and their infrastructure is mostly great, except that I never encountered a single drinking fountain. Not in the airport, train stations, shopping centers, food courts, public buildings...

Does everyone buy/carry water every day, or how do they survive?

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Singapore is (I think) the only country in Asia that you can drink water from a tap. But even so, people here still boil water before drinking it.

So outside people will buy water even if a fountain was available.

The official line here in Hong Kong is that the mains water is clean and drinkable, but the plumbing between the mains and your tap may not be clean. The Water Supplies Department maintains a list[0] of residential and commercial buildings whose 'last-mile' water supply is regularly tested and found to be safe and clean.

Of course everyone still boils their water...

[0] https://www.wsd.gov.hk/en/core-businesses/water-quality/buil...

Japan and South Korea tap water is safe...and I think it's commonly consumed in Japan. Koreans approach it like Singaporeans..some do, some boil.

I just googled and see Japan tape water is safe to drink. I've been by hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Mt Fuji all told me not to drink the tap water. Hence I thought it wasn't drinkable. Good to know it is!

I've never been to South Korea, yet.

I don't know which hotels you went to but that is bizarre. All water in Japan is safe to drink and, furthermore, is some of the best drinking water on earth IMO.

You probably misunderstood, or perhaps the hotel staff were all sharing the same oddly wrong english handbook...

>I've been by hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Mt Fuji all told me not to drink the tap water.

And perhaps suggested you buy some bottled instead?

Bottled water is free in hotels in Japan, so no...

> I've been by hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Mt Fuji all told me not to drink the tap water.

I've traveled all over Japan including those places and others far more rural and never seen that, it sounds really strange. Are you sure it didn't say you can drink the tap water? Maybe in broken Engrish?

Only places I've seen in Japan with warnings against drinking tap water is on trains and porta-potties.

Only country in Asia? What? Japan, South Korea, Brunei, Hong Kong (in the latter, it can depend on the pipes in older buildings, but the water coming from the mains is definitely safe).

There are drinking fountains in Changi Airport, you can find them at the piers. They’re rarer elsewhere (usually found at sports and recreation centers).

It is normal in Asian countries to not have public drinking fountains. Water coolers in some shopping malls is as far as you'd get in terms of public water source.

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