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Sunday 11 July 2010

Japanese Toilets

Ok so this is what you`ve really been waiting for I know! We`ve all heard about the weird and womderful ways of Japanese toilets but now I:ve experienced them for myself.

In most public toilets you actually get several of the cubicles containing squat holes which came as a surprise but if you bypass those and queue for the normal loo you often get the full electronic experience.

Just like a hifi differnt ones offer different features, most have certain things such as a button to spray a jet of water and another to offer a wider spray of water (bidet style the button calls it) but there are a variety of other buttons that I:ve discovered too. As standard you also get a stop button which took me a while to work out refers to the spray/jet, which doesn`t just stop automatically (I`m a bit slow on the uptake sometimes so I was beginning to wonder about the Japanese before it dawned on me that I:d seen another button.) You often also get a temperature button for the water so you can have it cold, warm or a bit hotter - I`ve not dared experiment with this one yet. On some you can also choose the pressure of the jet/spray. There`s another temperature button - but this one is for the temperature of your toilet seat. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by this when I sat on a warm one in the rest rooms at the hotel. I think they should become standard on campsites in the UK - would make midnight toilet trips a much nicer experience! The last type of button I:ve discovered so far is the sound button - you can often choose to have the sound of a flushing toilet going whilst you:re going to cover up your own noises but some toilets seem to offer alternatives noises or possibly music. SOmetimes you accidentally start this button off if its on a sensor and it can worry you - mind you yesterday I managed to set off the actual flushing sensor whilst still going but thankfully I wasn:t sucked into the toilet with my legs and arms waving as they rotated down the pan!

As I mentioned on an earlier post I also discovered one toilet that had a seat lowering button too which I think should also come as standard. I could happily live without jets and music but a warm seat that lowers for me would be rather wonderful.

So on to what I:ve been up to for the last 24 hours. Last night was the formal banquet for the conference. There were junior geishas dancing and a Japanese band playing with a lute, a lyre and a wooden recorder thing! We also had a 5 course dinner which was delicious but largely western. Bizarrely I`d put down on the dietry requirements I couldn:t eat nuts so I got an entirely different meal to the less fussy people. There`s didn:t actually seem to contain any nuts! Even more odd my desert came gelatine free whereas the fussy eaters desert was in jelly - since when was jelly made with nuts_?!

Today we went for a look round Kobe fashion museum which was mostly full of western costumes but very impressive. We then headed onto teeny tiny Japanese buses and went to a craft centre to decorate our own candles and finsihed it off with a walk to a delightful Japanese garden - everything you:d expect and more!

Tomorrow we leave Kobe and head to Kyoto - which my friend Ste tells me is like the York of Japan.

Sayonara.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the long-awaited toilet report. Your next challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to post some photos!!!

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