Cleanliness is Japanliness

When I awoke in the morning, my roommate had already left for breakfast, although he had told me previously that he'd be back to show me around the campus, since he knew it pretty well already. I did my morning routine and headed over to the bathroom and showers. It was the first time I had seen the a bathroom in our dormitory. My jaw didn't just drop; I think it dislocated. First of all, everything is clean. Like, everything. This is a relatively public men's bathroom and it is practically spotless. This in and of itself is amazing. When you walk in, there are about six pairs of 'bathroom slippers' labeled 'toilet' on them for use while you are in the bathroom; this is a Japanese custom that all households observe, not just dorms, although they are absent from most public restrooms (such as in train stations, restaurants, etc), so I thought it was really cool that they had it here. There are little subtle things about the bathroom that simply amaze me; the soap dispenser is incredibly easy to use, the faucets turn on automatically when you put your hands under them, and the hand dryer is designed in such a way that you simply put your hands inside this little box-like device, and then it turns on, and by the time you've taken your hands out, they're dry.

And then there's the toilet.

This... Cybernetic monstrosity of a toilet. It has buttons. BUTTONS. The seat is warm, and I don't mean warm like 'ew somebody must have just been sitting here' warm, I mean like, electronically heated warm. There are settings to turn the toilet into a bidet, spray water upwards (with an appropriate little pictograph of water splashing on two large butt cheeks), and even PLAY MUSIC. Suffice it to say that this is the most technologically advanced toilet I've ever used.

The showers are incredibly convenient. Instead of strange communal showers or ugly, disgusting showers like the ones in most college dormitories, these showers are private, seperate, and have two seperate little rooms. First you go into a seperate little curtained-off area to put your towel, clothes, etc, the floor of which has rows of blue plastic... things on it, so when you come out of the shower all wet, you don't get the floor wet; instead, you get the blue plastic wet. It's strange but it made sense only after I LEFT the shower, because the area directly outside the curtain has a sort of turf-like floor; it's not quite carpet, but it's not bathroom tile either; it's sort of in between. Anyway, then you go into the actual shower, which is closed off and nice and private, with a door that slides shut and actually locks. Directly outside the shower area with the astroturf floor is a row of sinks and mirrors, where people shave and such.

Once I'm done with my morning routine I head downstairs and meet up with my roommate, who asks my RA, Takafumi-san, who adamantly requests that we call him Taka, if we can borrow his bike. My roommate has already purchased a used bike and doesn't want to have to walk his bike to campus while I walk alongside him. Unfortunately Taka is already headed out and is using his bike, so we walk. Just before we leave about ten people join us, all heading to the campus. This is the first time something like this happens but it is by no means the last. A constantly growing trend seems to be latching on to groups of people who are going to do something, thus making an even larger group, to which more and more people latch on to, until you're less of a group and more of an amorphic blob of gaijin. We head out towards the campus - a twenty minute walk.

More to come.