Fabulous World of Toilets

All these years I thought a toilet was just a toilet.  Silly me.  In Japan, I have discovered a toilet can be so much more.  Even squat toilets, the most basic toilet, can have extra bells and whistles.  My favorite was at one shrine, when you squat, a machine automatically makes a background tinkling noise.  This made the whole experience seem so much more pleasant, dare I say, even some what elegant.

The western toilets I've had in my hotel rooms have actually been a little scary.  Lots of knobs and dials with words like "front", "back", "bidet", and "shower".  Shower?  On a toilet?  What does that mean?  I have this fear that I might accidently hit one of the buttons and find out the hard way.

The toilet in my Kyoto hotel automatically runs water when you sit on it.  After deciphering the signs, it seems this is done to warm up the shower function, in case it is needed. I didn't know this my first time sitting on it and thought I had accidently hit the dreaded shower button.  Never before has a toilet led me panic.  Let's just say, I now approach all toilets here very gingerly.

Comments

[AZN]

Personally, I like the pachinko toilets the best.

[Sam]

I worked with an experiment in the rural mountains of western Japan where the toilets are traditionally outside in an unheated room, and those mountains get *cold*. So the office had a very, very sophisticated toilet with heated seats, built-in air fresheners, a scale, you name it. The control panel had something like 50 buttons - all the same size and with inscrutable symbols describing their functions. One of my friends, being much more adventurous than anyone else I know, had set himself the task of figuring out the purpose of each button. Several disastrous, wardrobe-ruining trips to the bathroom provided much entertainment to everyone working there. Finally, one of our Japanese collaborators made a large english translation of the key functions so that my american friend wouldn't have any more unfortunate run ins with the "shower" function.

Hope you're having a great time in Japan - go see the Silver Temple, its wonderful!

[Dan]

Your blog would be more interesting if you were actually doing physics instead of traipsing all over the world.

[Caolionn]

Then I guess it is a good thing that I don't make my life decisions based on what would be good material for my blog.

But I am sure, with so many other QD blogs, you can find some physics to your liking, Dan.

[AZN]

Oh, snap!

(That was directed at Dan.)