Coronavirus Toilet Paper Hoarding

The so-called (but media driven) crisis over the coronavirus has cause fights over...toilet paper!

In Australia, women were filmed fighting over packages of toilet paper, one of whom already had a shopping cart full of rolls:

There's several ways of resolving the problem:

1. Use leaves (wide ones).

2. Use pine cones.

3. Use corn cobs.

4. Use newspaper.

and, 5., Get a Japanese toilet with a bidet:

Above, a Japanese toilet with bidet. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

What's next? Condoms?

Japan Modernizing Toilets To Boost Tourism

Above, a modern Japanese washlet toilet. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Foreigners who travel in Japan have a fear: having to use a Japanese squat toilet. Many fear that they would lose their balance in the middle of relieving themselves and fall backwards into the toilet.

Well, they can rest easier since the Japanese government plans to replace the "squatters" with western style sit-down toilets.

According to NHK:

The Japanese government will launch a project to convert all traditional squat toilets in popular tourist destinations into sit-on types that are more commonly used in other developed countries. 

The project is part of the government's efforts to boost the annual number of foreign visitors to 40 million by 2020, when Tokyo hosts the Olympics and Paralympics. The figure is about 1.7 times larger than that for 2017. 

According to the Japan Tourism Agency, about 40 percent of the toilets at 4,000 locations in popular tourist spots in Japan are traditional types which require users to squat over them. These toilets put off many foreign visitors.

One thing I have always wondered about: how do elderly people with back, leg and knee problems handle using the squatters? I would think that people with these problems would have great difficulty in using "the loo".

To read more, go here. 

Japanese Washlet Toilets, A Game of Thrones

Above, a Japanese washlet toilet. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The Australian's website has a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article on the fascination with the Japanese Toto Washlet toilet. 

If you've never tried one, this may spark your curiosity enough to go to Japan to try one or if you have already tried them, you can relate.

The article starts with:

Who knew you could get quite so attached to a functional item of the usually unmentionable kind. The Toto Washlet toilet, created in 1980 and with many enhancements since, is a fixture in many a hotel bathroom across Japan and once you’ve sat upon the warmed seat of such a throne, as I did across a week’s holiday last month, anything else seems a very poor substitute. 

The duckbill-like seat opens as you approach, in a sort of salute, and politely closes after you are done, with the semblance of a bow. Then it discreetly flushes itself with a murmuring cascade, like the most polite of little waterfalls. The control panel invites hot-air drying, oscillation, warm wash bidet, “odour masking” purification and a few other squiggly symbols that suggest the Toto could pop up slices of toast or play the accordion, if that should be your desire. Certainly it has no need to pass you loo paper after all those targeted sprays and rushes of warm air.

When we went to Japan last October, I had mentioned the washlet toilets to Denise. Once we got there and spent a few days in Japan, I asked her what she thought of them. She wasn't too impressed. Oh, well.

To read more, go here.