Monday, July 23, 2007

Japan - Installment 1

Okay, it’s been a week since we returned from Japan so I think I’m sufficiently recovered from my jet lag to start posting some stuff about our trip. I guess I’ll just start going through day by day summarizing what we did.

Our flight wasn’t too bad. We flew from Indianapolis to Detroit, had a 40 minute layover, and then flew from Detroit all the way to Tokyo. It took somewhere between 12 and 13 hours to make that last trip. Needless to say, that’s a long time to be cooped up on an airplane. Jen didn’t get up and walk around enough so she ended up having some swelling in her legs when we got there, but it wasn’t a big deal. It did make us walk around more on the way home, though.

We took a bus into Tokyo and met my friends Kevin and Meg at the Tokyo Hyatt Hotel. Kevin was my roommate for two years at Rose-Hulman and Meg is his wife. They’ve been living in Tokyo for a couple years now and are getting ready to move back to Boston. Meg is Japanese so she’s a little freaked out about moving to the US, but she’ll do just fine.

Anyway, the trip starts with one of the best stories of all time. Jen’s going to kill me for telling this, but it’s hilarious and needs to be told.

In Japan most of the toilets have a bidet and sprayer that eliminate the need for toilet paper after you do your business. It’s actually pretty nice and I kind of wish we used that in the U.S., but that’s beside the point.

When we got to the hotel, after a long bus ride, Jen decided to use the restroom while we waited on Kevin and Meg. Curious about the new toilet feature, she thought she’d try out the spray.

Well, the spray worked fine, but when she went to turn it off the “stop” button didn’t seem to work. So she tried the “spray” button again, but that didn’t work either. Being new to the situation, she thought that perhaps you just stand up and a sensor stops the spray. Unfortunately, all that tactic gets you is a bunch of water sprayed all over your legs and backside.

So now she’s in real trouble. She’s only been in Japan for an hour and already she’s trapped on a toilet with a spray hitting her in the butt. This has international incident written all over it. In a last desperate attempt she decides to quickly stand up and slam down the toilet lid. Success! After spraying the lid for a couple seconds the spray shut off and all was well.

In the meantime, my friends had shown up to greet us and we were all wondering why Jen was taking so long in the bathroom. When she finally came out she was moving quite quickly and seemed to be a lot redder in the face than when she went in. Needless to say we all had a good laugh. What a great way to start the trip!

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