While the widespread presence of public toilets in convenience stores is great, it is also fraught with ambiguous customs and could, technically, even lead to criminal charges.
Toilets (Page 5)
Using the amenities at this bookshop cafe means pulling back a shelf of books like a character from a spy movie.
They say variety is the spice of life, so this Japanese website is ready to add some piquancy to your Class 2 bathroom proceedings.
The Japanese are known for being incredibly efficient, so you’d expect them to also have the most efficient gizmos. Today, we’re looking at eight Japanese gadgets that we’ve become so dependent on, we can’t live without them!
Japanese toilets continue to lead the way with a new range of beautifully decorative models.
Earlier this year, nearly 1,200 rail stations in Japan chose to ban the use of selfie sticks in reaction to the dangers of users not paying attention to their surroundings and the general nuisance caused by the photo-snapping peripherals in crowded areas. Now, East Japan Railways, Japan’s largest train operator, is taking aim at another problem: people walking through the station while staring at their smartphones instead of watching where they’re going.
But while you can ban selfie sticks and only ruffle the feathers of tourists and other leisure-oriented train passengers, millions of people rely on their smartphones during their daily commute to keep in touch with family, coworkers, and clients. So instead of prohibiting them, East Japan Railways has started a campaign to remind people not to use their smartphones while walking, and the reminder is so gentle that you can put it in your butt.
On long car trips in the U.S., I didn’t really find the prospect of using a highway rest stop bathroom significantly more appealing than just holding it until I got to my destination, whether that meant waiting until the next city or the next state. Honestly, given how filthy a lot of the public toilets were, I was generally happier with a deserted stretch of road or a grove of trees I could pull over near.
In Japan, though, it’s a different story, as this video of a rest stop bathroom shows it to be cleaner and classier than the one in many people’s homes.
Although we explored public restrooms the world over in a previous article, we left out the fact that many refugees, natural disaster survivors, and other displaced people have no access to the modern plumbing many of us take for granted. For those living in areas where public toilets are unavailable, a trip to the bathroom is at best a chore, and at worst a major sanitary concern.
Luckily technological advances are being made in order to help remedy these problems, and so far 2015 has been a promising year in that regard. UK researchers and volunteers were able to successfully create an urine-powered outhouse, while over in Japan a high school girls’ volunteer club recently came up with a new economic and hygienic portable toilet option.
Love and music may not have borders, but neither do other universal concepts like the call of nature.
Although Japan is famous for its modern toilet technology (there’s even a museum now), many non-Eastern Asians are often taken aback when they visit the country and have their first encounter with the older, squatting kind. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re a staple in most Japanese schools, parks, and stations.
The fact that there’s such a gap in modern toilet technology got us curious about how toilet models and their degree of upkeep varies worldwide, and fortunately one brave soul has gone through the trouble of filming bathrooms across the globe to answer this very question.
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What would modern life be like without the humble toilet? Actually, we’d rather not think about that.
Many of us around the world should direct our thanks to TOTO Ltd., the world’s largest manufacturer of toilets and the very company that invented the washlet. In fact, Friday, August 28 marked the grand opening of the new TOTO Museum in Fukuoka Prefecture, where the company was originally founded in 1917.
Takashi Harada, our Japanese reporter who proclaims that he couldn’t survive a day without a washlet, immediately made a bee line to the new sanctuary to give thanks to the toilet gods and to learn a bit about the historical evolution of the toilet.
Earlier this week, what is being hailed as Japan’s “trial of the century” by many (in our office) has come to an abrupt end. The Osaka District Court handed down some rough justice in the case of a company president who sued the building he was renting office space from to the tune of 840,000 yen (US$6,800).
The president’s claim that the building’s urinals had caused excessive splash-back of pee were dismissed due to several reasons including the president’s own “pee experiments” being deemed inadmissible by the courts.
Was the president a quack who didn’t know how to urinate correctly? Or was he a victim of greedy cost cutting landlords and toilet moguls? This is their story based on court documents.
After cars and video game consoles, fancy toilets just might be Japan’s best-known technological achievement. In a society that prizes cleanliness, it’s no surprise that being able to push a button and have a warm stream of water wash your backside has become one creature comfort many can’t do without.
As such, just about everyone in Japan is happy to have a washlet, as bidet-equipped toilets are called here, in their home. Some people can’t help but wonder, though, if they’re spraying someone else’s fecal matter back up on themselves when they use a washlet in a public restroom.
Picture the scene: you’re waiting for your number to be called at City Hall or some other municipal building in rural Japan, when suddenly your stomach starts growling and your gut begins to twitch and spasm as that super-greasy kimchi ramen you had for lunch is pushed at top speed through your digestive tract. If you don’t go now – right now – things could get messy fast, so you make a beeline for the restroom and hope that there’s a stall free. Inside the restroom, you charge towards the half-open door on the end, a layer of sweat forming on your brow as your body starts counting down, T-minus 10 seconds to total evacuation.
Then it hits you: the stall you’re standing in is fitted not with a luxurious, bidet-equipped, warms your backside and plays music at you Washlet brand of toilet, but an old-school, upside-down urinal built into the floor Japanese squat toilet.
There’s no backing out now. The deed must be done. The question is, how traumatised will you be after using it?
We at RocketNews24 previously told you about 10 Things Japan Gets Awesomely Right. Now we want to tell you about ten more things that are equally awesome, but especially for women in Japan. It doesn’t mean that men don’t also find these things impressive, but we’re betting that some of these have never been noticed by men, because, well, they were designed with women in mind.
Every woman likes to be pampered every now and then, and in Japan it’s just too easy to get used to some of the every day niceties we enjoy! Of course the Japanese are known for being polite, which helps tremendously to get through any stressful day, but Japan goes that extra step sometimes to make things that much nicer. After all, it’s the little things in life that matter, right?
So here’s our list of 10 things that make it so darn nice to be a woman in Japan. Get ready, ’cause you’re gonna love these!
Cats are known throughout the world for their amazing ability to put themselves exactly where they don’t belong. Whether they’re plunged deep where the sun doesn’t shine into a narrow crawl space or looking down on their “hoomans” from the attic, there’s no end to their hiding spots.
However, one Japanese Twiter user found her cat in what could best be described as a “compromising” position…under the toilet faucet!