Konnichwa readers! (Good afternoon)

Japan Fan here with another delightful topic about the Japanese culture: toilets. Yes, be alarmed and be afraid; Japanese toilets are weird looking and difficult to operate.

Scary looking huh? I’m not going to go into detail about using these babies, but to answer your question yes, yes you do squat over the toilet as you go. (And we wonder why the Japanese are so athletic.)

One thing to remember is that a lot of the public bathrooms do not have toilet paper. Oh joy. However a common practice in Japan is to have girls standing on street corners promoting a business/product by handing out small packets of tissues. Yep, you get to use those instead of toilet paper, so try to keep some handy at all times.

If you are using the bathroom in a Japanese home you’ll probably see several pairs of slippers inside the bathroom. Yes, you should use those to walk to two feet to the toilet. It’s a Japanese custom/way of culture that I’ll get into later.

However, don’t freak out TOO much about the toilets. Western style toilets are the norm in houses/apartment buildings, and even in the cities a good portion of the bathrooms have both kinds of toilets. (Most of the hotels use western toilets)

BUT be careful when using any toilet in Japan. Japan, the electronic capital of the world, lives up to its name by having electronic toilets that will self-wash and do pretty much anything a maid can do. Be careful when pressing the buttons or you’ll get yourself sprayed with water or cleaner. The directions for the high tech toilets will most likely be in Japanese, so you may want to ask for help if you’re unsure about what button to press. (Better to be safe then sprayed.)

That’s all for today, happy toilet trails!