Celeste’s Toilet Tale

So far I have been able to avoid use of the Japanese squat toilet as there seem to be quite a number of Western style public toilets available wherever we have been touring. (touch wood)

However, my experience with one of the super deluxe Western style toilets did not go as well as expected. We had stopped for tea and a snack at an upscale bakery/café. Never wanting to miss the opportunity for a bathroom break I ventured to find the Ladies room. I found the room – there was only one toilet and it was one of the super deluxe toilets I had heard about. I thought, what the heck I’ll probably never have another opportunity, so I sat down – ooh, a heated seat. Felt kind of odd - all cushy and warm. Beside the toilet was a small control panel with about six push buttons with small Japanese writing and drawings underneath each. How hard could this be? I pushed the first button with a picture of a bum and a water spray – whoosh. Yikes, that felt freaky so I pushed the button again thinking this was how to turn it off. It just sprayed harder. Oops. I tried the second button with a picture of a bum with wavy lines underneath – that must be the drier I reasoned – that should turn off the sprayer. Nope – it just started another sprayer. Oh no – what have I done. The toilet is filling with water and I didn’t know how to stop it. I couldn’t stand up or get off or it would spray my clothes and I’ll get wet. Don’t panic – it’s not rocket science I told myself. Oh oh - the water is coming pretty fast – better flush. The next button looked like a flusher so I pushed it. I heard a flush but nothing happened. Don’t panic – push it again. Still nothing. Then I remembered Carla telling me that these fancy toilets have a button that makes the sound of a flushing toilet supposedly to mask any embarrassing sounds but not actually use any water. So where is the real flusher? I looked behind me and found a regular handle to flush. Great – it worked – at least now the toilet wouldn’t overflow but I’m still getting sprayed and I can’t get up. I’m trapped until I figure this out – or maybe Carla could help. Should I embarrass myself and call out for help? What if she couldn’t hear me and then I realized even if she could hear me what could she do - I couldn’t reach the door lock from where I was sitting without getting up and getting sprayed. Don’t panic, don’t panic. The water kept coming. The next button had a picture of a bum with more lines underneath but I had no idea what it meant - I didn’t dare try. I had to use reason – this is ridiculous – don’t panic. If these buttons didn’t work as “push once for on, push again for off” or pushing one button didn’t cancel another button - there must be a master switch to turn off the entire toilet. Hmm - better flush again – just in case. Then I spotted another button - on the top of the control panel. It had no picture but it was orange so that looked promising - worth a try. Halleluiah - it worked! The spraying stopped. Whew - what a relief - I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day sitting there getting my bottom sprayed while flushing the toilet. I never did figure out any of the other buttons or which one was the dryer - I was through experimenting. The whole experience maybe only lasted a few minutes - but it felt like an eternity.

Lesson learned – don’t start anything you don’t know how to stop – especially if the directions are in Japanese!

Sleeping in

We have become quite accustomed to sleeping in on our holiday. Sleeping for 9 or 10 hours has become quite normal. I have found that, when you don't have all those nagging everyday problems on your mind, you don't have to get up and do something about them when you wake up. You can just roll over and go back to sleep. I am so relaxed that I sometimes wonder how I mange to stay standing up!

Dangerous Australia

Barb Jones emailed us at the beginning of the week that there had been a big cyclone (hurricane) at Innisfail, an hour south of Cairns. We knew that these were possible during the wet season and were keeping an eye on the weather. One day they even said it looked like one might be forming, but it weakened instead of getting stronger. Anyway, we managed to avoid any seriously bad weather the whole time we were there and only had heat, humidity, and occasional rain to deal with.

I may have said something about this before, but Australia is actually kind of a dangerous place. In Canada we have winter cold, but the summer heat in many parts of Australia is just as dangerous. In Canada you might run into a bear or a rattlesnake while hiking, depending on where you are, but that is about it. In Austrlaia the list of hazards is as long as your arm. In the water, you are in danger from rip tides, sharks, saltwater crocs, jellyfish, and two or three kinds of venomous fish and eels. On land there are 21 or 22 of the world's 25 most poisonous snakes and 2 or 3 deadly spiders and tarantulas. And then there are the cyclones. Canada looks pretty safe in that comparison.

Amagasaki 8 (for Mar. 24)

Today was a pretty quiet and relaxing day. This morning Carla and Celeste both got caught up on some laundry while Tyler got ready for work and I caught up on some blogging. Tyler left for work around lunchtime and the rest of us went out to tour the neighbourhood. We spent quite a long time at a dollar store near the station examining all the Japanese junk food, trying to figure out what it was, and comparing it to what we have at home. Then we strolled down the nearby covered shopping street and off into the surrounding neighbourhood to get a feel for how people live here. Finally, we picked up a few groceries and headed back to feed Carla so she could also leave for work by 5:30. I went back to work blogging while Celeste read a book.

Tyler came home about 7:30. We all waited excitedly for Carla to come home and she didn’t disappoint. She came home with octopus balls from the lady who makes them in her van parked outside the station. They are actually pretty good. The octopus is much like squid. It is coated in a thick ball of dough (kind of like chicken balls) and seasoned.

Well, I am all caught up in my blogging! And only a couple of more days to go! I won't get very far behind now!

Housing

Around this neighbourhood, there are a few single family homes, but most of them are two and three story apartments. Yards are usually big enough for a parking spot and maybe a small tree stranded in a sea of concrete. In addition, there are several taller and larger apartments nearer the station. Many other areas have far higher density with more and larger apartments.

Vending machines

They love their vending machines here. They are everywhere – on the streets, in the stations, everywhere. Sometimes singly, but mostly in groups of two or more. Mostly they sell all kinds of hot and cold drinks. Not just pop and water, but many varieties of coffee and tea, with and without milk, and just about any kind of drink you can buy in the grocery store. Of course, there are also cigarette machines. And there are a few ice cream machines around to.

Trains, bikes, and automobiles

The transportation system here is really quite remarkable compared to ours at home. It is hard to comprehend how they organize the spider web network of trains, subways and buses. There are local trains that stop at every station, rapid trains that pass some of them by and get going a little faster, and special rapid trains that pass by even more of them and get going faster yet. How they switch them all back and forth among the different tracks and station platforms so that they don’t run into each other is a mystery to me. It also amazes me how close the connections are. Many times you can walk off one train and right on to your connecting train. If you miss it, no worries (Australian for no problem). There will be another along in about 10 minutes. In addition to all these, there are the bullet trains which run on their own tracks. Carla assures me these can run at up to 300 kmph, although they do not always do so for various reasons.

What do you do while riding the train for an hour or so? A few of us, Celeste and I included, people watch and look out the windows. But if you are a local who rides almost every day, I can see that you interested would wane. So, most people do one of three other things. Many play with their cell phones. I don’t know if they are playing games or sending and receiving text messages, but they stare at them pretty intently. Many others read. And about 1/3 sleep. Slumped over, sitting up, even standing! I would be scared to death of missing my station and waking up 100 miles away in the wrong direction. But Carla and Tyler say you get accustomed to the time it takes and always seem to wake up in time.

Trains are great if you live near a station, but what if you don’t? There are buses, but we haven’t experienced them. The most popular solution is your old fashioned single speed coaster bike. Here is a small sample of the bikes parked around Carla and Tyler’s small station. Note that one of them uses two levels to squeeze more in and avoid getting them tangled together. Sometimes they are above ground and sometimes below. I saw one full bike parking lot as big as about 4 or 5 of our city lots. It is quite striking to observe a distinguished looking business man pedaling his way to or from the station while carrying his briefcase. Carla says distinguished looking ladies in high heels carrying a briefcase and umbrella are even more interesting. There are a few scooters around, but not too many.

There are cars around, but it seems that the people who have them don’t use them that much when they have all these other alternatives. The residential streets that we have seen are usually only single lane, although there are certainly some very wide and busy streets in the downtown areas and there are expressways. Parking is a challenge, both at home and wherever you might drive to. When we were in Himeji we saw a live demonstration of something Carla and Tyler had described to us. It is like a Ferris wheel, but vertically oblong instead of round. When one side goes up, the other goes down, like two opposing elevators. A car drives on to the bottom level and is warehoused somewhere in the stack by rotating the whole stack. When it is time to retrieve it, the stack is rotated again until it is at the bottom. It is kind of like the clothes rack at the dry cleaners, but vertical. Quite interesting to watch. They also have other methods of using lifts to store cars on parking shelves for the day.

Amagasaki 7 (for Mar. 23)

Carla and Tyler were both working today, but Carla had developed enough confidence in us to send us out on our own – accompanied by written instructions. Nothing too major. Catch the train a stone’s throw from their place; ride to the next station; get off and transfer to another train on another track; ride to destination; and do the reverse on the way back. It’s not quite that easy. You do have to watch for a few things. But we have picked up enough in the last week to make this doable.

We arrived safely in Himeji in the early afternoon and made our way about 1 km to Himeji Castle. The tour book says it is the most spectacular castle in Japan, and I have no reason to quibble. I found it very interesting. As we climbed the hill within the fortress I was intrigued by how, each time you passed one of the many gates, you entered a new courtyard covered by loopholes for marksmen or archers. Thus, the castle had many, many layers of defense, creating huge challenges for an attacker. The interior of the castle keep itself was basically empty, except for some exhibits about the various families that had held power in this region in various eras. It was still a very interesting tour to observe how it was constructed. Throughout the building were racks like this for the storage of guns and spears.






Adjacent to the castle was a complex of about 6 Japanese gardens that we toured. Each one had a different theme. They weren’t at their best due to the time of year. Most of the trees had not yet leafed out and it is not yet cherry blossom time, but something was blossoming. We think they are plums. A couple of other interesting things were the way they are training the evergreen trees by trussing them up with bamboo poles and the cherry trees with bamboo structures and the way they wrapped and bound some of the trees with straw. Don’t know what that is all about.




































When we got back to Carla’s station we picked up a few groceries at the neighbourhood stores and headed home. Tyler had beaten us back by about an hour and Carla got home about 2 hours after us. We all sat down to some of the ice cream we had bought drizzled with some of the liqueur we had brought them from Australia. Mmmm, good!

Amagasaki 6 (for Mar. 22)

We got a bit of a late start today, delayed by conversations with our darling children. We were hanging out in the morning getting ready and I checked my computer to see if there was any email. There was a message on Skype (Internet computer to computer long distance calling) only a few minutes old from Darren asking, “What’s up?” We called back and had a nice chat for about an hour. It was early evening in Vancouver. Carla sent a message to Laura asking her to join in, but she wasn’t there. No sooner had we hung up on Darren than Laura called. We spent another hour talking to her. It was sure nice to hear their voices and catch up with them. Until now, our Internet connections have been brief and occasional. What a difference when you can remain plugged in indefinitely.

Tyler was working today, so the three of us set off for Nara, which was established as the capital in 710 AD and remained the capital until about 780. During this time, Osaka was an important commercial and diplomatic centre and had an Imperial Palace for the Emperor, it wasn’t the capital. The main attraction in Nara was all the temples and shrines built by the nobles. Although the originals had all been burnt down in the middle ages, many were rebuilt hundreds of years ago. Three of them have been designated World Heritage Sites. Most of the lower slopes of the hills north of the city are a series of parks, temples, and shrines.

After leaving the city we traveled through some fairly open country under a heavy overcast sky and continuous light rain that persisted through the day. Once there we walked about half a kilometer to our first target, a five story pagoda reconstructed in 1426.


The grounds of this and every other park space are full of sacred deer. They are kind of like our sacred geese. People feed them, they poop, and you walk in the poop. They also like to hang around the tourist shops and food stalls in case someone might feed them.



We passed through this huge wooden gate on our way to our next stop, another Buddhist temple. This one is the largest wooden building in the world. I figure it is over 100 feet tall. Inside is a giant Buddha. I figure him at about 60 feet, plus the 10 foot pedestal that the altar is mounted on. The pictures just can’t capture the size of this thing. Apparently, all the copper and gold in the statue nearly drained the country’s total supply when it was cast in 752. There are also 4 other huge 15-20 foot tall statues inside. The building was burned a couple of times. The current version was rebuilt in the early 1700’s.



We made it home by about 8:30 and spent the evening visiting, blogging, and otherwise killing time.

I had my first experience with a Japanese toilet today, and it was an interesting one. Although they have western style toilets in most public places, they are not found everywhere. The Japanese style is level with the floor. I walked in, faced away from the plumbing like I normally would, squatted as low as I could go on my haunches, and did my business. But where was the toilet paper?! It was behind me! I couldn’t turn around to reach it without losing my balance and falling in a bad place, so I had to rise part way up and shuffle part way around without dropping anything in the bad place until I could reach the toilet paper. When I was done with all the squatting and partial standing I felt like I had just been through some new exercise program. One I wouldn’t recommend. Apparently, you face the plumbing in these Japanese bathrooms and everything else is right in front of you. Keep that in mind if you are ever in Japan. You will save yourself and major workout.

Amagasaki 5 (for Mar. 21)

Today we went to the Osaka Museum. It was most excellent. There was enough English in the displays that you could usually tell what was going on, but much more and it would have taken too long to go through. They had many excellent dioramas and models, like this one of the officials in the court of the local ruler of the day. One of them is the spitting image of Celeste!


The dioramas and models contained many finely detailed action figures that made you feel like you were looking at a moment frozen in time.












From the museum, we could view our next stop, Osaka Castle, although the reflections in the window were pretty bad. Tyler had to leave us at 1:30 to head for work, but we continued on to lunch and the castle. We toured the grounds for a couple of hours, taking in the views, including this peach and plum blossom park.























We also stopped for some delicious candied strawberries on a stick. Mmmmm! What diabetes?











Around 5 we headed for an entertainment district where a teacher at Carla’s school was playing in a band. First we toured around the area for a while soaking up the atmosphere.
















One of the icons that we had to take in was this wall of neon advertising, including the character standing on one foot. He is a symbol for a food manufacturing company.

We got to the club where the band was playing about 7:30 and ate at eight. Tyler got off work at 8 and joined us at 9. We headed home at 10 and were in bed by 11. The band was pretty decent, playing my kind of oldies - Eric Clapton, The Police, and Santana.

Amagasaki 4 (for Mar. 20)

Today we went to Kyoto which was Japan’s capital from about 800 to 1500 AD. Since it was the capital, it was full of palaces, Shinto shrines, and Buddhist temples. The rich and powerful nobles would build a shrine or temple to beg favour from their deity, thank him for their good fortune, or just to show off how rich they were. We visited a park area with dozens of religious buildings. I am not quite sure how the shrines differ from the temples, but, if you want to know, ask Carla. She seems to have an idea. This is a place where the people throw money in a box and shake the rope that hangs down. This rattles a “bell” that is more like some stones in a tin can (although some are more like a gong).

We came across some kind of performance area where women old to young were doing traditional dancing.



This is the entrance to one of the major attractions, a Buddhist temple part way up a hill. The entrances are actually much more attractive than the temple itself, which is just plain unfinished wood.










One of the things that you must do in Kyoto is take a picture of the city and the temple and maybe even yourself from a nearby lookout. So that is what we did and here we are.















We then made our way back the way we came. Tomorrow is a national holiday (vernal equinox), so there was a lot going on. There were all kinds of lighting and art displays throughout the park and the nearby streets were full of people and all the shops were open.



From the park, we toured the old section. It was very cool with all the old style buildings clustered together. Although I am sure things have been repaired and upgraded over the years, the buildings looked much like you would expect from a couple of hundred years ago. From there we went to a “German” restaurant. Although the meat portion of each dish was based on something German, the rest of each dish was definitely Japanese. It made for some interesting combinations and was very good.

Leaving the restaurant at 9 PM the streets were as full as the Scarth Street Mall on a busy summer noon hour. And as we rode the train home around 10, it was also packed.

It was a pretty nice day. Mild, not windy, and frequent sunny breaks in the thin broken cirrus cloud.

Too busy to blog

Carla and Tyler have been keeping us too busy to blog! We have been out until 10 or 11 every night and sleeping in in the morning. Then we get ourselves together and do it all over again. I will try to get us all caught up.

You may have noticed: no pictures from Kobe. My batteries died again. I kept looking for the special lithium ones that perform so well in digital cameras, but couldn’t find them. Eventually I settled for rechargeables, but, of course, they needed charging. I should have bought some cheap alkalines just to get me through the day, but it is too late now.


Here is a picture of Carla and Tyler’s place. They live in the third floor apartment on the left.

Amagasaki 3 (for Mar.19)

Today’s objective was to tour Kobe. First priority is the Kobe Earthquake Museum, commemorating the Jan. 17, 1995 earthquake that killed 6,400 people. We got away around 10 and arrived at the museum by 11 after a short wait for the train, a half hour ride, and a walk from the station.

Our tour began with a dramatic video of the earthquake taking place. Carla figures the whole thing was a reenactment. Some parts obviously were, but some parts may have been actual video from security cameras and such. It was pretty dramatic anyway to see buildings, elevated highways, and such falling over. From there we went to another video presentation telling the story of one survivor and her experience in the quake and its aftermath. Next was a floor of displays of pictures and artifacts from the quake along with comments from survivors about their experiences in the quake and the aftermath. Another floor was devoted to what was learned about construction techniques, building codes, emergency preparedness, and such.

We bought combination tickets to also tour the adjoining nature museum. One floor was devoted to appreciating nature and enjoying its serenity. It basically tried to give nature experiences to city people who might not get many. Another floor was kind of like a science centre. We finished up about 2:30 and grabbed some lunch.

From there we hiked downtown and explored. We checked out an open air mall a few blocks long. It was all roofed over, but not totally enclosed. The street was about 40 feet wide and filled with people. From there we went to Chinatown. It was also several blocks long, but the street was narrow and uncovered. It too was full of people. There were about a million little eating stalls and restaurants.

Next, we went to a cheese cake place around the corner that Carla and Tyler wanted to show us. Above ground there is just a doorway and a sign. We went downstairs to find a cozy little eating area packed with people. The twist came when our cheese cake arrived. It is literally a piece of cake, about 4 inches in diameter, dusted with icing sugar, and with cheese melted on top. Not what we were used to, but very good.

Next we went down to the harbour area where they have some earthquake monuments and a redeveloped shopping and entertainment area. We explored until late, and then ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Different, but still spaghetti. We got back about 10:30 and went straight to bed.

It was a cool day – high about 12 – but sunny. The killer was the breeze, which was pretty stiff. It cooled off pretty good after dark. It was 5 degrees when we were rifing the train home. I think I like heat better!