The toilets of Japan

Bathrooms
As our travelers have already been warned, there is a noticeable difference between Western bathrooms and Eastern bathrooms – mainly, the seat! It takes some practice and balance to master the Eastern toilet but we are looking forward to the challenge and know that we will all come home having mastered the squat and having tones glutes to prove it!

Panoramic views, soaking tubs bathrooms that are as big as a room. I fell in love with Bathrooms. I love the adventure of exploring them in cites where I have heard they are, let’s just say, they take getting used to. I will start with our first trip to Japan. We passed the airport bathrooms because we were told they would be, “western” Not sure what the meant at the time. Did they have a saddle or a horn to hold on to? Well soon to find out you need something or someone to hold on too. We arrived in Tokyo by train and ran to the bathrooms to see what they looked like. Oh my, they were a hole in the floor with two areas to put your feet and squat down. There are two styles of toilets commonly found in Japan. The oldest type is a simple squat toilet, which is still somewhat common in public conveniences. After World War II, modern Western-type flush toilets and urinals became common. The current state of the art for Western-style toilets is the bidet toilet, which, as of March 2010, is installed in 72% of Japanese households. In Japan, these bidets are commonly called washlets, a brand name of Toto Ltd., and include many advanced features rarely seen outside of Asia. The feature set commonly found on washlets are bidet washing, seat warming, and deodorization. Many of the toilets have music to cover up the sound of you going to the bathroom. People are shy and want to cover up their bodily functions.

Japanese Squat Toilets

Before toilets in Japan went cutting edge, they were downright barbaric. The traditional Japanese toilet is a “squat” toilet that is essentially little more than a hole in the ground. Foreigners or I should say to me and the kids were perplexed about which way to face when using these toilets. For the record, you should face forward (toward the toilet) when squatting. Just make sure to take a good aim! And yes we have fallen in!

This is so true. Sitting on a Japanese toilet it fun