Tokyo Trip #3: Toilet, Part 1

Home bath rooms and toilets are far more high tech then anything in the US and our apartment was no different. Please note that I said bathroom and toilet separately because in Japan they are their own rooms. They may not even be close to each other.
Most all Japanese home toilets have a hand washing bowl on top of the tank as you can see in the photo. With each flush, new water first goes through the top where you can rinse your hands, then is collected in the main tank as normal . This way there is no wasted water. Why isn't this used here in America? The flush handle has a large flush and a small flush for either solid or liquid flushes - you with me? Again, ingenious!

Our apartment toilet also had the high tech option of a build in bidet complete with a Captain Kirk control pad on the side. There were not one but 2 different stream options as can be seen in the icons - with the stop button on the left. It was a first for both of us. Linda is a convert, I am not.




The separate bath area was no less high tech. It had a typical Japanese bath, or furu, and a shower head with the entire room being water proof. The bath is really deep but only big enough to sit in, no stretching out here. The bath was filled once for the week and because we showered before entering, it was always clean. Again, in the hopes of saving water. The contol planel on the wall could control the temp of the bath and the shower separately and the black panel on the top was the LCD TV. There was also a duplicate control panel in the kitchen so that we could warm up the bath when we got up in the morning. Great for those cold winter mornings! Once again Linda was totally sold on the Japanese style bath however I stuck to just the shower. We both liked the bath TV.


Yes, the title says part 1 because I will be posting more about toilets.