Japanese Toilets...

Much to Ashlynn’s disapproval, it’s impossible for me to write about Japan and not mention the toilets. Even in our shabby apartment, we had a toilet that automatically warmed the seat and had several different spray options.

The most unusual aspect of our toilet, however, was the top which had an integrated faucet. Honestly, I’d never considered using toilet water to wash my hands before. After I got over how gross that seemed, I realized that it actually made sense that some of the tank's clean water went to the bowl while some went to the top. I only saw one other toilet like this during our journeys, so I guess it’s not commonly used.

In the giant electronics store, you couldn’t buy a toilet but there was an entire department dedicated to the large variety of fancy mechanisms that you can add to your existing toilet. 

In many public places, the restrooms were spotless (including in most train stations!) and the western toilets had sophisticated control panels with a variety of buttons; although I never experimented with all the options, I do know that the button with an image of a musical note will play the sound of rushing water in order to block out any “embarrassing” sounds you might make. 

The Japanese love pictograms. Here’s one just in case you weren’t sure how to use a Western toilet.

In one place I saw a clever family set-up: a regular toilet for the mom, a urinal for a young boy and a seat for the baby all within a single stall. I also saw a fancy electronic map on the wall at one train station that not only specified which stalls were available, but which had western toilets versus Japanese traditional toilets.