Best Bathrooms Ever!

It's impossible to say what my favorite part of the new house is. It might be that it's off-base. We have Japanese neighbors and our closest grocery store is filled with new and different foods. It might be the fact that the house is new. It's almost pristine and has fancy appliances in the kitchen and expensive air conditioners. But maybe, just maybe, I love this house because it keeps my butt warm.

May I introduce you to the heated toilet:

It may not look like much, I know. It kind of looks like the toilet is locked up in this tiny prison-cell of a room for committing unspeakable crimes against human undersides. Looks can be deceiving:

BAM! That is the control panel of our toilet. I repeat, our toilet. The heating of the seat is only the beginning. It also spritzes fragrance and bidets in two different ways. See those buttons on the left? The left-most one is stop (very important) and the other two... well, you can interpret the pictographs yourself. As for any experimentation, let's just say that both Blake and I know that the bidet water is cold. 'Nuff said.

The buttons on the right control the heat. It's not a simple on and off switch as you can see. It has an energy saving mode, you can adjust the temperature of the toilet seat (it gets blazing hot, probably good in the winter), and put it in auto-mode where it heats and gives out air freshener. I'm assuming the air freshener part is empty in ours. It makes a noise, but I don't smell anything. It probably has a refill somewhere but I have no clue how to buy one.

I can't wait until winter. No one likes sitting on a cold seat in the winter. It will probably be life changing.

Already life changing? The shower room.

This place is awesome. I haven't taken a bath yet, I'm still too enamored with the shower. No dark, confined shower stalls. No, this is a whole room, with a freaking sound system. You plug in your iPod outside and it pipes the music inside, with a water-proof remote. The bath is on the left with a cover over it. The little panel above the tub is the water heater. It's an on-demand system. That is to say, it doesn't waste energy by constantly having hot water. It heats the water only if you need it.

That thing you see hanging from the curtain rod (though why you'd need a curtain is beyond me) is a scrubbing bubbles automatic shower cleaner. It did not come standard with the house. It is fresh from the commissary. Japan is a humid country. Add to that fact the very nature of the shower room (i.e. it becomes a sauna five minutes into your shower), and it can lead to previously undiscovered forms of mold and mildew. Hopefully, this device staves off the growth. We've heard stories of showers left to their own devices. They're gross.

The room that leads into the shower room is the laundry/sink room:

The washer and dryer are on loan from the base for the duration of our tour. The toilet room is right next to this. It has its own door into the hallway. All Japanese houses have separate rooms for the toilet. There's not even usually a sink in there. Upstairs (as you will see), the sink is actually in the hallway.

That's not to say there's not a way to wash your hands in the toilet room. If you look closely at the first picture in this post, you'll see a faucet jutting out of the top of the toilet. When you flush, water runs out before going into the tank to flush with. Do not be alarmed. It is clean water! It's just one more way Japan thought to become more efficient and conservative.

I cannot yet wash my hands in the toilet-sink. My brain knows it's clean water, but my heart screams at me, "no! It's toilet water!" So I wash my hands in the kitchen.

The other rooms of the house are really, really bare. The master bedroom closest has clothes in it, but the air mattress isn't much to look at. The office has a lot of Blake's stuff in it and a big messy box of office things that can only get sorted out when the rest of our household goods get here on Monday. So, I think I'll hold off on those rooms until then. Also, I am going to buy curtains today so hopefully it looks like I actually live in the house and care about what it looks like.