This may seem like a bit of a ridiculous blog topic, but as any previous visitor can tell you, Japanese toilets are truly one of the interesting aspects of Japan. I mean no offense to anyone. But once you’ve used a $10,000 toilet, curiosity sets in.
Japanese toilets represent the ultimate luxury in “using the bathroom.” Previously, in Japan, the toilets used to basically be a hole in the ground. However, in the last couple decades, Japan has converted to western toilets and taken it to a whole new level. The technology and attention to detail is unrivaled. Most have a full control panel with buttons that do everything and anything, yet are entirely impossible to understand. Let’s have a look through some of the functionality and differences I’ve come across this trip.
Heated seats – This is a fairly standard function here and much appreciated. After having spent last weekend skiing in Mammoth and staying at a mountain cabin, I was reminded all too quickly of the negative aspect of a cold toilet seat. The more advanced toilets have knobs or digital indicators for setting the toilet seat temperature, and yes, it is possible to get it too hot. I’ve never heard of an actual burn, but “toasty cheeks” takes an all new meaning here.
Flushing Noise button – Among the hundreds of potential buttons on a toilet here, one of the ones I have seen in our office building is a “Flushing Noise” button. Effectively, you press it and it makes the sound of a toilet flush. I could not figure out the purpose (I can’t figure most of the buttons out, but this one intrigued me) and had to ask my co-workers. My guess was that it was for when some guy in the stall next to you asks for a courtesy flush and you could fake him out with the fake flushing noise. But, no, apparently it is to be polite and mask the noises you’re making for those in the stalls next to you. Why the button wouldn’t just play music is beyond me.
Non-perforated TP – This is something I take for granted at home. It’s not the standard, but there are a lot of toilets here that have toilet paper that does not have the perforations to separate out the TP into little squares. Instead, it is one continuous roll and you have to tear it off. It changes pulling off toilet paper from a one hand job into a two hand job. Not the worst thing in the world, but the fact that non-perforated TP exists here is shocking.
Full length doors – Most stalls in Japan have doors that go all the way to the floor. I once heard a discussion between Adam Carolla and Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy) about full length doors that made me analyze these here in Japan. The doors definitely provide more privacy as Carolla suggests, which can be both good and bad. The Japanese have seemed to attack the light issue by still leaving a gap at the top above the door and having better lighting over individual stalls. I am sure that it makes it more difficult to clean as they also discuss, but I think the Japanese design for the privacy of the user over the difficulty of job by the janitor. Makes sense.
Auto-raising seats – I cannot figure out how the toilet sensors can tell if I need to stand or sit, but somehow it always seems to know which one. The seat raises when I come up to it and drops back down afterward…all hands free.
Lack of flushing lever – Often the buttons can be far too complicated to figure out. Last night I spent about 3 minutes trying to find the flush button on a toilet at the bar in Roppongi. I pressed anything I could find, but there was no easy lever or BIG button that made it obvious. In the end, I had to give up and leave the toilet, unflushed, in hopes the next user was more experienced than myself.
Front and Back Bidet – These toilets are made to spray you from every angle, with varying warmth of water, and then blow dry you afterward. There are at least a dozen buttons for this process and each one will spray or dry you from a different angle. I will admit to trying them all (as I said, curiosity sets in), but have not enjoyed it enough to use again. Warning: Be careful when trying these buttons – there are levers and nozzles that come out of everywhere to attack you.
Double Flush – There are buttons for the double flush and power flush. It will flush multiple times when you’re complete. In actuality I think there are like 10 buttons for flushing, but I cannot figure out all of the difference between each of them.
Besides these, there are many of the standard buttons you would expect, such as the ability to control the music and lights in the room. There are dozens of other functions that you can find all over Youtube, but I cannot figure them all out yet. All I can say is that it is worth the experience.
I must admit that I am a bit frustrated by the lack of available Wifi in Tokyo. Well, free wifi, that is.
While I picked up a Japanese rental mobile phone while I’m here, it’s not my iPhone. It does not have all of my apps set up, my email, my photos, my music, etc. If I take pictures on it, I cannot even figure out how to send them because most of the functions are in Japanese.
So, basically, I am back to where I was a few months ago, where I have one phone for calls (used to be my blackberry) and one phone for photos, music, etc. The only problem is that the second phone (my iPhone) cannot find the Internet often enough.
In the States it seems I am always able to find a free wifi connection to tap into from my iPhone to get faster Internet than 3G offers. I know that Japan actually has an even faster network that 3G now (I think they are passed 3.5G and are maybe on 4G or 5G now). This is great except for the fact that normal US cell phones don’t work here.
Now, this is not to say that there is not wifi around. I am constantly able to find 5-10 networks to connect to. In fact, there are a lot more wifi access points. It’s just that they are all private. All password protected.
While I completely understand the point behind protecting your personal wifi router, it is also frustrating. If everyone is going to be protective, than I wish there should be more of an effort by the city to offer a citywide wifi or something like that. Not that this is done well in the States, but it is in progress. In the meantime, people aren’t desperate for it because there are quite a few free hotspots to find an use.
Interestingly enough, while putting together this rant, I found an iPhone app called “Free Wifi Tokyo”. Apparently, I am not the only one to have this problem. I am installing it now. Let’s just hope it helps direct me to those hotspots.
Heading to Tokyo for the week. There is only so much reading and sleeping that can be done on a 10 hour flight. And, I hate relying on United for decent movies. Thus, I resort to my pre-flight selections downloaded to my iPhone.
I am adding a season’s worth of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” to my iPhone. Also going to add “A Serious Man” so that I can catch up on my Oscar nominees.
Anyone have any other favorite movie or TV Shows they have watched off of iTunes recently that I can add to my playlist?
Please check out the redesign we did on Basketball.org. I’d love to hear any feedback anyone has, good or bad.
We moved the site over to the Wordpress Thesis Theme, which we continue to use more and more. Thesis is really an incredible theme and has a massive following and support group. If you have built more than one Wordpress site, I suggest you check out Thesis for any new sites or upgrades.
Besides the theme change and update of the design, we also launched several new content sections and technology additions. They include, but are not limited to:
Skills Section – This is a growing directory of how to type pages for learning correctly basketball skills that those learning the game can use. For instance, to start off, we released a skills page on How to Shoot a Basketball
Drills Section – A list of both team and individual drills organized by category (ie. Rebounding Drills) and age (Youth, Middle School, High School)
Courts finder – We are continuously adding courts to this section, we you can browse or search for local courts to play at.
Foursquare – We included Foursquare into the individual Courts pages quite heavily. Viewers can see who the “Mayor” is of that court, tips from other users on that court, and also who it presently at the court (who has checked in within the last 3 hours).
Facebook – Besides the fan box on the side, where our Basketball page continues to grow rapidly, we also removed the Wordpress comments to use Facebook comments instead for blog and other discussion-type articles. It is a great viral tool as any comments left can optionally be pushed to the users Facebook profile as well.
Youtube and Flickr – We have created groups and playlists within these video and photo sites to feed the individual Courts visual media sections. You can find these within individual Courts pages.
Gear Section – We used Amazon to embed an affiliate store within the site, providing full access to any basketball related equipment
Lastly, we have started a monthly mailing list for Basketball.org, where we will review the updates done each month, recap top stories, and add in other tidbits of stats, quotes, and coaches tips. This newsletter is highly recommended for the casual basketball fan or player who may not want to follow the blog RSS on a daily basis, but still wants to keep basketball flowing through their blood and inbox.
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