Konnichiwa
Konnichiwa and welcome to the Tetsu Otoko Brog. (that translates to "Iron Man Blog")
I've been in Japan for 4 hours, 2 of which were spent on trains. Yet another hour was spent trying to decipher the train schedule and routes - which included buying a ticket for the right price, but for a very wrong station, - with 100 pounds of luggage in tow.
On the train, I took in the view of the city/countryside. I know Czech is hard, and I've been told it's tougher than Japanese, but at least I could read the signs in Czech (with some effort, granted). I stared, and felt relieved, at the signs UNIQLO and JAROO simply because they were of English letters, for at least a short while.
Finally arrived in Kusatsu and met Maki and Patrick. Pat is the guy who's place I'm crashing at for the next couple weeks until my place is all set up, and Maki is one of the coordinators at the school where I will be working.
We get back to Pat's place, and Pat has to run out to the office for a little bit of end-of-the-day work. I take some time to get my bearings, sit down for a bit (in case I didn't have enough sitting after 24 hours on two planes, two trains, and three airports), and freshen up. I go to the bathroom and take care of my number one business (if you know what I mean), and go to flush. However, where is the flush button?? Maybe you can find it for me.
No? Well, to help idiots like myself, they have a handy-dandy guide on the underside of the toilet cover.
Hmm... ok. Well, I think one of the buttons is for a bidet, so push a different button. The icon on it isn't very clear, but I think it seems like a flush button. I'm encouraged when a splash of water lands in the bowl, but then nothing happens. For a moment. A retractable arm extends out from the inside of the bowl, much like an R2D2 extendo arm, and proceeds to spout some water out. At first, the pressure is low enough the water arcs into the toilet directly, but the pressure quickly increases, and it is soon covering me, and after I move out of the way, the far wall of the bathroom. I think that the extendo bidet arm is on a timer of sorts, but it keeps going. I start hitting all the buttons I can until I find the magic off switch. Phew. But now there is water all over the wall and floor of the bathroom.
Laughing, I mop up the mess and continue to look for the flush switch. I hit every button, and nothing flushes. So now, 20 minutes later, I'm sitting here typing this, awaiting the return of Patrick, who can explain the mysteries of the toilet to me.
Fortunately there is some baseball on television. At least I know what goes on with that. And wouldn't you know, Bobby Valentine is all over the place. In TV spots for a plastic mini baseball game, saying, in a Japanese accent, "Three bases!"
4.5 hours in the country, and all I can say is "This is gonna be interesting."
... (written a few hours later)...
So it turns out there is a regular flush lever on the far side of the toilet. HA!
I've been in Japan for 4 hours, 2 of which were spent on trains. Yet another hour was spent trying to decipher the train schedule and routes - which included buying a ticket for the right price, but for a very wrong station, - with 100 pounds of luggage in tow.
On the train, I took in the view of the city/countryside. I know Czech is hard, and I've been told it's tougher than Japanese, but at least I could read the signs in Czech (with some effort, granted). I stared, and felt relieved, at the signs UNIQLO and JAROO simply because they were of English letters, for at least a short while.
Finally arrived in Kusatsu and met Maki and Patrick. Pat is the guy who's place I'm crashing at for the next couple weeks until my place is all set up, and Maki is one of the coordinators at the school where I will be working.
We get back to Pat's place, and Pat has to run out to the office for a little bit of end-of-the-day work. I take some time to get my bearings, sit down for a bit (in case I didn't have enough sitting after 24 hours on two planes, two trains, and three airports), and freshen up. I go to the bathroom and take care of my number one business (if you know what I mean), and go to flush. However, where is the flush button?? Maybe you can find it for me.
No? Well, to help idiots like myself, they have a handy-dandy guide on the underside of the toilet cover.
Hmm... ok. Well, I think one of the buttons is for a bidet, so push a different button. The icon on it isn't very clear, but I think it seems like a flush button. I'm encouraged when a splash of water lands in the bowl, but then nothing happens. For a moment. A retractable arm extends out from the inside of the bowl, much like an R2D2 extendo arm, and proceeds to spout some water out. At first, the pressure is low enough the water arcs into the toilet directly, but the pressure quickly increases, and it is soon covering me, and after I move out of the way, the far wall of the bathroom. I think that the extendo bidet arm is on a timer of sorts, but it keeps going. I start hitting all the buttons I can until I find the magic off switch. Phew. But now there is water all over the wall and floor of the bathroom.
Laughing, I mop up the mess and continue to look for the flush switch. I hit every button, and nothing flushes. So now, 20 minutes later, I'm sitting here typing this, awaiting the return of Patrick, who can explain the mysteries of the toilet to me.
Fortunately there is some baseball on television. At least I know what goes on with that. And wouldn't you know, Bobby Valentine is all over the place. In TV spots for a plastic mini baseball game, saying, in a Japanese accent, "Three bases!"
4.5 hours in the country, and all I can say is "This is gonna be interesting."
... (written a few hours later)...
So it turns out there is a regular flush lever on the far side of the toilet. HA!
posted by David at 7:13 PM
2 Comments:
keep the faith brotha'!
thinking about you over here in prague. thanks for my first laugh of the day. that's hilarious
So, let us know wtf the spraying thing was doing. Was it one of those auto-cleaning bathrooms?
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