Toilet Stories | Modern and Squat | Japan Travels

I had a hilarious experience with the Japanese toilets. My poor friend who was the least travelled out of the three of us and therefore the most culture shocked, found it difficult facing the inconsistency of loos in Japan. One minute the toilet has an ass-shower and then the next, it’s a bowl on the floor. Poor girl must have felt homesick every time she had to relieve herself.

While we were in Japan we encountered three kinds of toilets. The first was (thankfully) the most common of all, the normal everyday toilet. The second was regularly found at our hotels, the bidet. The third, which we encountered mostly in Tokyo Stations and Kyoto, was the traditional Japanese toilet – the squat toilet. It’s not even unique to Japan as it is common all over Asia. It’s this last kind of toilet she struggled with the most as would most first-time users.

The traditional Japanese toilet is actually not as primitive as most people think. It flushes, that’s a good thing – and totes modern! I’m no stranger to long drops so this was actually pretty fancy in comparison. It looks like this:

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The first time my friend encountered the squat toilet she ran out and told us she accidentally went into the men’s room. Really? So she’s never even seen a men’s urinal before either. I suppose she thought the men's urinal dropped on the floor. Es posible.

I was pretty fortunate when the first time I used the Japanese squat toilet there were instructions at the back of the door. Basically it’s asking me to put my feet on either side of the urinal and face the dome, do my business and then flush. I actually like the idea of my skin not touching any part of the toilet. My friend was a different story.

The first time she was forced to use the squat toilet we were rushing to go on a tour. No time to be picky! The restroom had three cubicles but only one of them had a western style toilet. Our Japanese friend knew which cubicle the western one was in and went to use that without telling either of us.  There were no instructions to be found anywhere inside the cubicle so I curiously wondered how my inexperienced friend was faring.

Afterwards she recounted to us how she used it and apparently she had to remove everything she wore from the waistline down, she faced the urinal the wrong way, almost fell in and forgot to flush. We fled the scene in an instant because even just standing next to her was too embarrassing.

The second nightmare she had was with the bidet. The thing about the bidet is that it doesn’t matter how fancy the toilet is, you can still ignore all its functions and use it like a normal toilet. I don’t blame her for this mistake because it could happen to anyone. It was just unfortunate that it had to be her – the one who was suffering the most.

I think it happened in our second hotel. As usual we had a bidet in our room but oddly, the flush couldn’t be situated anywhere near the toilet. She assumed it was located in the bidet controls. After looking at all the buttons closely, she found a button she believed would flush the toilet. Unluckily it was the posterior wash. It didn’t squirt all over the place as in most bidet horror stories, but it also didn’t have the best aim. The touch of the water frightened her and she stood up immediately accusing that damn perverted water. The water trickled down her legs then on to her clothing basically creating a huge mess.

Later we found the button was embedded on the nice marble wall behind the toilet. It was so well incorporated into the bathroom theme that it became a little hard to spot. An information a little bit too late for my friend.

Peaces :) x