Japan day 2. Japanese Toilets.
Wednesday the 8th of March 2023. Tokyo, Japan
We are awake by 08:30 AM and once I peer out of the hotel room window, I see that the weather is lovely- there is not a cloud in the sky. I am excited, as I am in any new city, to see the skyline at the different stages of the day. I step out onto the balcony and take in the scale and density of Urban Tokyo. The Sky Tree looks bigger in the morning haze than it looked last night. We all shower in turns.
… At this point I shall try my best to inform you about Japanese toilets and their many and varied eccentricities, at first glance and usage.
The Japanese Toilet
The Japanese toilet, at first glance, to a Westerner such as myself, is a very interesting but intimidating thing: it is at once extraterrestrial and familiar. There are many variations on the same theme which, with regards to my own varied experiences, I will aim to briefly explain herein.
At the point of entering a toilet one has reacted to the physical prompts which nature uses to encourage the evacuation of matter. It is all very natural - even the King shits. There are obvious and visible stages of desperation that a person displays upon the point of entering a toilet: some rush in, harried, looking for a free cubicle and others mosey on through the door happy to wait their turn. Everyone, however, wants to, at the very least, relax during this time and so when one walks (or runs) into a Japanese toilet, the facilities never fail to impress. The cubicle or room is always maintained and cleaned to a level of spectacular and emphatic spotlessness - in fact, it would not be in any way hyperbolic to say that one could eat their dinner at a little table if it were pulled up towards the toilet on which they were seated. There is to be found by each user a lid which, in public settings, is rightly and politely closed. One lifts the lid and reveals a toilet seat. If one were to sit and look down between one’s thighs, there he would see a bowl containing the cool receiving water - it sounds remarkably familiar, doesn’t it? But once the user recognises this pleasant, familiar trinity of lid, seat and water bowl,, it is, however, where the familiarities cease, and a tabula rasa takes its place. For example, the first thing I notice when I sit: the seat is warm, invariably. Now, a warm toilet seat is quite a common occurrence back home: in a busy, dingy train station, say, if one were to use the toilet after a person who had been reading a particularly engrossing broad sheet article on their phone, spending an inordinate amount of time sitting there, in their squalidness, the seat would be – for better or for worse - warmed for the next user. To some people, including this writer, that would be a grossly warmed seat, but needs must and all that, what? The Japanese toilet seats are, in contrast, electronically and not organically pre-warmed. The temperature, when it is experienced by the user for the first time on the back of their thighs, is strange but not jarring, nor akin to the gross, organic, buttock-warmed feeling described above. The temperature seems to be warmer by a few degrees than any sweaty, porcine shanked individual could ever hope to achieve. With just this slightly-warmer-than-human temperature, it is enough for your brain to work out and instantly dispel any of those kinds of intrusive thoughts. There is nothing but your comfort at the front and centre of this whole philosophy; It is inconceivable that the Japanese would have their toilet goers suffer, not one person’s buttock shall ever be forced to endure a ‘Stepmother’s kiss’ level of frigidity, or the sharp December sting of a freezing cold seat. Leaving these warm comforts aside, what about ambient comforts? The Japanese have also taken care of that. For any nervous toilet goers out there in need of a little help, a little encouragement, you need look no further than next to your right leg, slightly raised and to the side of the toilet seat. The user will find a control panel arm which contains a complicated looking series of buttons - Kanji symbols only – which have many different uses. One button shows a musical notation inscribed on the legend suggesting that a song could play if one were to press this button, at once ridding the cubicle or small room of any nerve-wracking oppressive silence. One can take care of business to the strains of a pleasant jingle, or a classical theme. Lots of toilet models have imitation flushing sounds, too. A series of three buttons lay next to the jingle/musical setting, on this toilet, which show on one button a jet of water aiming at the buttocks of the toilet goer (Bidet); on another, a female variation on the water jet theme graphic (Wash Front); and finally, a double spouting water jet (Wash Back), each with different levels of power which can altered using the + and – buttons on the control panel. I take care of business and use the flush setting which was exceedingly difficult to find as it was a button showing three teardrops forming what seemed, after a prolonged period of deciphering, the basic shape of a mild-mannered whirlpool. The wastewater disappeared. The unfamiliar and complex technicality of this toilet kept me sitting there thinking: what do the rest of these buttons actually do? Thus imbued with increased curiosity and trepidation (having never used a bidet before) I decide I should try some of the more basic and decipherable settings out. My index finger aquiver, I press the bidet button and wait a few seconds. A small motor sounds which signals there is no turning back now. I am worried a jet of water will erupt from between my now slightly tensed thighs, when immediately, an unfamiliar but not altogether disagreeable physical sensation ensues. The targeted aim of the impacting water jet astounds me. The only way I can describe it is that it has all the accuracy and precision of a moon landing. I begin to feel embarrassed after a short while, so I press the jingle button, thinking by this point I am something of an old hand at all this. I wonder whether is it too quiet in here for using a bidet? Do people even want to hear the noise of this bidet? I press a button with a + symbol several times to remedy this sonic issue; I succeed, however, only in increasing the ferocity and accuracy of the bidet’s thrust, and the sound it inevitably makes. The experience is a strange combination of being engaged in a daily human activity in an unfamiliar setting, while being – at the same time - self-conscious of this fact and being shamelessly, eye-wateringly gratuitous with the (over[?]) usage of the toilet’s bidet, and its marvellous jingle setting. Alas, all good things must come to an end. At the close of my first experience using a Japanese toilet, I feel as though have hitherto been living my life in a bygone age, never wanting to crawl back to use whatever Stone age toilet systems I have grown up accustomed to using. I have never felt so clean and refreshed and actively looking forward to Nature’s next call. I feel I have had a firsthand experience of something truly Promethean.
…Carla eats an egg roll, bought last night, for breakfast. We make our way to the train station to get to the Imperial Palace gardens, tickets are $2 each. On the way to the station, we stop in the almost-as-ubiquitous-as-7/eleven store, Lawsons. We opt for sandwiches all around again, not having found quite the place to officially sit down and eat a ‘Japanese’ meal. Carla opts for a seaweed and kelp salad with octopus. Mum and I buy more of the delicious triangular, crustless egg sandwiches. We are in a vibrant financial district; lots of smartly dressed men and women and a flow of benign traffic drifts past on the road. We find a concrete step which forms a kind of buttress surrounding the base of a tree and eat there. The ambiance is eerily quiet. More surgically clean looking, well-dressed people walk past, and all follow pedestrian rules to a tee, the traffic continues to be very well behaved. We do not hear a single horn beeping. The walk to the gardens is great. This city is on a scale I have never ever experienced before. Twenty to thirty minutes’ walking and talking, and we arrive at the Eastgate entrance at the imperial palace. The Moat is broad and glass smooth and steaming in the cool-warm morning temperature. A lonely duck swims across the glass pane surface obliterating the facade. The palace walls are built using huge, dark grey rocks which look to me to resemble a sort of Tetris-by-Cyclops construction which is an astonishing feat of engineering. The rock wall slopes inwards at about a 30° angle. We walk onwards through huge and imposing wooden gates towards a bag search security area all the while looking for somewhere to dispose of our sandwich wrappers. At the ticket desk I ask the very pleasant staff where I might find a bin. He proceeds, out of typical good grace and a strictly adhered to code of manners, to take our rubbish bags from mum and dispose of them for us inside the bin in the small kiosk. I express my gratitude and ask innocently why bins are so difficult to find in this city? It is the cleanest city I have ever been to but, paradoxically, with no means of rubbish disposal. The staff member informs us that bins were not to be found anywhere in Central Tokyo due to a terrorist who planted bombs in bins years before. The Japanese seem to not mess around with this kind of implementation. People are just required to hold on to their rubbish and dispose of it at their home. It is quite a clever idea as it makes one feel more civically conscious of rubbish and the disposal of it. The gardens are stunning - perfectly manicured bushes and trees that look like oversized bonsai trees. We walk around the large perimeter Fort. Three long, low buildings that were built to house groups of samurai. The first ones held forty low ranking samurai. The further in we walk, the higher-ranking the samurai become, the buildings also increase the capacity to one hundred. These are strictly guards of the palace. Fire consumed much of the grounds including the large main defence tower sitting atop a fifteen metre 2-storey base. Construction by engineers was started on rebuilding a fort as the biggest ever in Japan, but abandoned when the king’s advisers said no such fort was needed in such a peaceful and prosperous Japan. The view from the top of this two-storey base is magnificent. It is also heartbreaking when one thinks of the predicted scale of the never built building that would have sat imperially on this huge base works.
We walk round the ever-enchanting gardens. They look like something from a movie set. There is the tea house built in 1900s. The very image of sophisticated and simplistic Japanese architecture: long elegant lines, graceful sweeping roof joints, elegant tiles, lovely walled panels. Artists are sketching the building as we walk past, a charcoal on canvas set on an easel- I love seeing artists at work like this, and these artists are very skilled. There are koi carp ponds; there are more lovely trees, many waterfalls, calm tourists except the odd group of noisy Americans. Winding paths lined with plum trees which are in the exact moment of declaring Japanese springtime by bursting out in confetti of dove-belly white, and hot-pink blossoms which are enchanting. These cherry blossoms are centuries old, and the trees were planted by an emperor who had a particular affinity to them. We walk around these grounds for hours. There are archery towers, more barrack buildings, which are in original state. Great ancient wooden beams holding up the pitched roofs. Such wonderful truly Asian, unaffected architecture. When our tummies rumble it is time to make a move.
We head back into the city hunting for lunch. Earlier this morning, back at the main train station, we had noticed there was a row of small restaurants. I am sure they are the same restaurants I saw Rick Stein eating at on one of his tv travel shows. We do a typical thing that unsure tourists do when hungry: which is to walk up and down the entire row of restaurants, peering through the windows, under these low flag type things that seem to hang from the top of a lot of the entrances to establishments, invariably settling on the first place we saw. The hard part is they all look great, and the emanating wafts smell great. We choose one, enter to a joint cry of welcome from all the staff, sit down. It is all dark woods and close tables. We are the only westerners inside. The menus are all in Japanese. The easiest solution to a language barrier is to choose what are obviously displayed on the menu as set meal deals. The meals cost about ¥850 for a bowl of rice, a soup and stir fry (a selection of meats), or omelette. The chefs work in a tiny kitchen which I can see into through a wide hatch. They all look and act seriously and work with diligent professionalism. I am really looking forward to this first real Japanese meal. When it arrives, I am pleasantly surprised to see such big, delicious looking portions. I receive what I thought was beef (which turns out to be liver, and is completely delicious) fried in soy, sesame, mirin, and other such deliciousness. Mum receives a white pepper stir fry of chicken, onions, carrot. Carla had a large omelette. All three of us receive a small bowl of chicken soup which is simple and to die for. The rice is a complete revelation. I have never eaten such perfectly cooked rice where each individual grain is like a tiny, prized pearl in the mouth. These chefs are real- deal cooks. The seasoning is flawless. Beer is also an absolute revelation, poured from small machine contraptions sitting atop any flat surface, which show the pipes rising up from the connection point of the beer barrel; just as life giving fluids are transferred from machine to pouch then through clear pipes into a person in hospitals, the beer is pumped from barrel to gizmo to handled pint glass, always a handled glass. It is frothy, cold, and poured with a Germanic focus on a foamy head. It seems that when the Japanese put their spin on an established cultural commodity such as beer, they try to improve on it to such a degree, it becomes an almost better product that one could find in its country of origin. I find that these beers are dangerously moreish. I only drink two Asahi beers. what a fantastic intro to food out here! We pay our note into the rectangular note receptacle and wait for our change. The staff and chefs all thank us for or custom and they all bow, it is all formal but effortless. Never in my life have I felt like more of a valued customer
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