Toilets in Japan are the best in the world! When I think of “famous Japanese technology”, I think of their toilets. An entire nation can take pride in the design of the Japanese toilet. It is like they took something everyone uses and made it better. Just amazing!
The toilets located in most homes are in separate rooms. Some have a small sink with a spigot of running water on the top of the tank and a mechanized toilet seat below. Many toilets have built-in soundtracks of running water or music of some kind, thus camouflaging any sound that might be made in the use of the toilet.
First, and most importantly, the seats are heated. Very nice in the winter I might add. By pressing a button, you can simply flush or you can press a button for wash and a button for dry, then flush.
So far, I have found clean public bathrooms everywhere. Many bathrooms have separate changing rooms for babies. In many stalls, there are baby seat holders shaped like car seats attached to the wall. You can have your child near you while you take care of business. In some bathrooms, there are low toddler sinks, counters, and mirrors.
All bathrooms have walls and doors that are to the floor and very high for privacy. There are usually two to four rolls of toilet paper in each stall. There are sinks with temperature-controlled water, soap foam dispensers, hand air dryers, and often times hand creme is available, all sitting on the counter for you to use.
At the large roadside rest area bathrooms, you would walk into the lady’s room area and find that almost all have fresh-cut flowers in pretty vases on the counters to greet you. It’s difficult to beat this kind of personalized attention.
In some of the train stations, large sporting arenas, and in older country settings you will still find the toilet on the floor. This old fashioned kind of toilet is still preferred by many. The concept is that there is no bodily contact and therefore considered clean. I was lucky to have had little use of the old-style personally as they are difficult to use.
As requested!
Here is a typical old-fashioned Japanese-style toilet as mentioned above.
I have to admit it seems silly but I was very impressed with the toilets in Japan as well. They’ve really thought of everything. I think you need to add a picture of where they’ve come from to this blog. I experienced the hole in the floor while there (in a dollar type store) I’m glad I had the experience but also glad I only had to do it once.
The next time I go to the Sports Center for a meeting, I will take a picture of the old style toilet and plug it into the blog so it shows the difference. But, I must say many people really prefer the old style toilet. The rational is that your body does not touch anything someone else has touched. In the train stations, there are usually both styles available for use.