I'm literally in Love

Japan.=)(/&%ç*"+東京ええ！

Well what can I not say about this mad country! So I finally land with a short delay in Tokyo. I am met by the lovely Noriko, of whom I know from my time in Zermatt. We catch up on times lost buy some tiny sarnies and board the shuttle bus to Tokyo Central.

The bus takes about an hour, and we finally arrive in the night. No loons just your average construction workers dressed like the Beastie Boys from the Intergalactic Video. Or should I say the Beastie's dressed like them R.I.P Adam Yauch.

We get over to the huge Tokyo Central and get on a tube to our destination our British style hotel hand picked by Noriko!

I'd like to add at this point, although I'm a weathered traveller and speak a few languages, without Noriko I would of been lost. And with my very small knowledge of Japanese I would of definitely been lost. Some Japanese will or do speak English but most not. Either way thank you Noriko.

So we arrive at the hotel, check in, and that's when it's starts..... My obsession with Japanese toilets.

It seems to me that Japan has obsessions with certain things, and other things not. One being personal hygiene. I am personally not obsessed but I totally see the point in these high tech bogs! A quick low down...

The red button is the stop button. very important. The Bum sprinkler button is exactly that.. Then there's a lady sprinkler, to be honest I didn't see/feel the difference (with hold the jokes)! And the plus and minus buttons are intensity jet power. Now taking in account that this was a run of the mill one, I encountered way more high tech ones with blow dryer, flush control, flush sound... yes flush sound.. let me explain.

So the Japanese are very private polite people. And I have noticed some contradictory scenarios which the toilet flush sound button to be one of them. So here's the scenario. In Japan it's incredibly embarrassing to be heard squeezing one out, as well as the plip plop and the straining. Now I think for most people (I mean westerners) this is embarrassing but I presume that everyone knows they have to do it and thus it being slightly embarrassing but natural. Well the flush button gives you a 2 minute sound of the toilet flushing and the water being sucked away to allow you the time to wrestle out and mirage the plip polp avoiding and embarrassment. Now I don't know if it's just me or not, but the sound of a fake flush is dramatically un similar to a real flush, so if one presses the flush button surely cubicle person next door will realize your having a dump thus cancelling the whole thing out. I don't know you decide.