I'm a little overwhelmed with the mass number of pictures we took while hiking Mount Fuji, soooo, until I can sort thru them I thought I'd post a few of the pre-hike pictures. The 2 1/2 hour drive was an experience in itself since we had never driven out of our town or on a Japanese toll road before. Fortunately, our directions were good and we made it with no major problems!
Loving both of these signs (you can click on them to zoom in closer). If you're wondering, the sign on the right is NOT another parking sign. Is it scary that I can't tell you exactly what it is? :)
I was told by a Japanese lady that rest stop food is really good and she was absolutely right! They had two fast food choices: a burger place (looked really similar to mcdonalds or burger king) and the place we picked. You order and pay at a machine and then they call your number when the food is ready. Using the machine was a little tricky but we eventually matched up the Japanese characters on the picture with the characters on the machine. We were very happy that our food came and we made the right selection! Didn't know it, but we were eating our first plate of Japanese curry with pork that day - very tasty!
How can I possibly share rest stop pictures without showing the bathroom!?! A Japanese lady giggled when she saw me taking a picture of the squatty potty. If you've ever wondered why Japanese people in the states take soooo many pictures and don't seem to mind if people laugh, it's probably because they're laughing at themselves!! I CERTAINLY never thought I would be compelled to take toilet pictures! So, the pic on the left is the western toilet with your traditional noise making, water shooting, heated seat business going on. On the right is the Japanese style toilet. In some ways it's a lot less intimidating - okay, maybe it's not less intimidating, but it's DEFINATELY less complicated. At least it's pretty obvious how to flush it since there's only one button/handle! The "wash button" in the picture on the left was a little unclear to me...fortunately it was for flushing.
No exciting stories here, just a pretty picture on our drive!
Ah, the toilet technology in Japan. I remember waking up one morning in my hotel and sitting down on a warm toilet. I jumped up, looking for the intruder who just hopped off my crapper. No one there. As my heart beat slowed, I noticed - the thing had a warmer.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had one of those back in the states :).