The future of pooping

You have to hand it to the Japanese - when it comes to high-tech and gadgets there is no farther frontier than the land of the rising sun. Never is this as apparent as when one for the first time places one's rosy cheeks on the crowning jewel of toilet technology - the washlet. A pleasant warmth spreads through your lower regions as the preheated seat silently greets you and automatically starts the ventilation fan. As you look down to your right you note the flashing lights and shiny buttons of the control panel, making you feel more like you're about to supplement the captain's log than to defecate. After doing your business, a few key presses guides a jet-stream of warm water with pinpoint precision to the general area of your unmentionables, making the concept of toilet paper join bedpans in the ranks of obsolete toiletries we'd rather just forget about.

In short, washlets rock.

Also Godzilla watches over you as you poop.

雪男

It's cold today. I thought I had escaped winter's merciless advance, but it has somehow managed to track me down. Perhaps I brought it with me, like some kind of temperamental disease vector - a mild case of Mårranitis. There's a concept in Japanese known as 雨男 (ame-otoko), a man whose presence seems to cause rain. I guess that would make me a 雪男 (yuki-otoko, yuki means snow). Maybe that's why all photos of me come out blurry... (no one will get this joke)

Dilemma (no, seriously)

Let's face it. One of the best things about Japan are the super-cool cell phones. I've been having a hard time trying to decide which one to get though, since no model combines all the features I'm looking for. The oh-so elusive Holy Grail of cell phones would be equipped with a 480 line VGA screen for that mouth-watering, crisp visual experience, a clam shell design to protect said screen (plus it looks cool) and a GPS to navigate the labyrinthine back-alleys of Tokyo (see previous post). The two top candidates are the Sharp 912SH and the Toshiba 912T. The former sports a rather novel flip design which supposedly makes browsing PC websites and watching digital TV broadcasts easier, but it lacks GPS. The latter is slightly thinner, with a stainless steel front and the ability to rotate the screen to the front - useful for taking pictures and watching TV, but hardly for browsing the Internet. This handset falls short on it's measly 240 line QVGA screen and considerably shorter battery life. The only fair way to decide which model is the better is a good old fashioned fight to the death.

Viking? I'll take that as a challange!

I've just come back from a yakiniku all-you-can-eat buffet. If you know me, I take that literary. After all, it's all-you-CAN-eat buffet, not a sissy all-you-want-to-eat buffet. Last one who throws up looses. As if that wasn't enough, buffets are for some strange reason called "Viking" in Japan. Probably in the sense of "Real men are big, hairy and can eat half their body weight in meat. You're not a girly man, are you?". Girly man? Oh, it's on...

Urban planning? We don't need no stinkin' urban planning!

In my first step towards independence, I went for a look around the area where I live today. Now, for those of you who have yet to experience the wonder of Japanese urban planning this might seem trivial, but the simple truth about Japanese urban planning is - there is none. Things that we take for granted, like that if you take a parallel street to the one you usually take you wind up in roughly the same place do not apply here. In fact, the concept of parallel streets seems about as alien as that of parallel universes. You would think that Daedalus was the city architect. I really need to get my hands on one of those nifty Japanese cell phones with GPS...

Bald people are freaky

So there was this one guy at Helsinki airport. A business man, I guess, judging from his Burberry shirt and expensive suit. Now, you would think that someone who cares enough about their appearance to wear brand clothing would take similar care of their hair. You would be wrong. You would be very, very wrong. Being a guy who is coming to terms with the fact that my hairline isn't what it was 5 years ago, I can understand the will to hold on to whatever hair you have, but this was just not right. I have more hair on my ass than this guy had on his head. What few strands of hair were left were located on the very back of his head and had it not been for the fact that they were like *15 cm long* would have been undetectable to the naked eye. That's right, freaky bald guy had a Kelsey Grammar syndrome but with less hair on the back of his head that Frasier has on the top of his. He looked like the armpit of a prepubescent boy. I'm gonna have nightmares about this.

Sayounara Sweden - Helloooo Tokyo!

Good riddance.

Well, no, not really, but I'm glad to finally be in Japan. So far, things have been good although it's a lot hotter here than I had expected. Still, after suffering through what has been the coldest, rainiest Swedish summer to my recollection, the sweltering heat and humidity seems like a better deal.

The trip went a lot smoother than usual, with almost no waiting time or delays and best of all - my own personal video screen. What is usually a 10 hour adventure of boredom became almost enjoyable with a hefty selection of movies and TV-shows, many of which I hadn't seen. After plowing through "Shrek the Third", "Spider-Man 3" and "Fast Track" (which was a lot more bland and generic than its cast seemed to suggest) and a few classic episodes of cartoon comedy (the word "classic" is here used rather loosely, referring to "Futurama" and "Family Guy", rather than "Merry Melodies") I could spot the lone majesty of Mt. Fuji on the horizon. Hooray.

Tune in next time as I continue my tantalizing tale of expatriatism. Same monkey time, same monkey channel. Well, probably not the same monkey time, but you get the idea.