Japanese Bathrooms
Yes, this topic deserves its own post, believe it or not. I've already mentioned the heated toilet seat. No joke, it is still one of my favorite things about Japan. Of course when you have central heat throughout your house, I guess they become less necessary and therefore less luxurious on a cold winter morning. But alas, we do not have central heat in Japan. And as I've mentioned before, it has been as cold as 41 degrees Fahrenheit inside our house while the heated toilet seat remains a balmy 85 degrees.

But there are in fact many things that make a Japanese bathroom much more comfortable than any other bathroom I've ever used. Brian, the conservationist guy that he is, particularly appreciates the faucet built in to the top of the toilet tank. "Reduce, reuse, recycle" is our motto around here. Don't worry, clean water comes from the water pipes and pours out of the faucet so you can wash your hands and the dirty water drains into the top of toilet tank to fill it.

We have mentioned already how much we like the Japanese bathtub. It fills with the touch of one button to a temperature you preset with a digital thermostat. And another button turns the water heater on to recirculate the tub water and maintain it at a set temperature. Reheated water pours in through the jet. Apparently, it is possible to program a timer to fill the tub at a certain time each day. We're told some people even use their cell phones after a long day at the office to call their tub to tell it to fill up! We haven't figured out those options on our tub and we still think it's cool.

And one should not underestimate the convenience of having a button to push to keep the mirror above the sink fog-free. Or the usefulness of having not one but two toilet paper dispensers that help prevent overshooting the amount of t.p. needed at any given time.
While the hole-in-the-ground toilet is not something I see as positive, even public restrooms in Japan have some perks. The faucets are almost always automatic as are the hand dryers, which project "gale force winds" at your hands to dry them in record time.

But I finally decided Japanese bathrooms were worthy of a blog entry this week when I saw this "Shower Robo" in a public restroom in a Japanese department store. What is it for, you might ask? The Shower Robo appears to be a device that automatically senses when you step into the stall and immediately starts the sound of a trickling faucet so as to cover up any impolite sounds you may make in the presence of other restroom goers. It continues until you step out of the stall. (I was especially glad that it covered up the sound of my camera taking this photo so that no one had to wonder what I was doing with a camera in my stall.) This is another invention that leaves me wondering why we don't have these in America. You may think of electronics when you think of Japan, but for all of the above reasons, I would argue that a Japanese bathroom is definitely Japanese ingenuity at its best.