Memories of Tokyo

The high tech we don't get.

From this article in Time magazine.

Even I didn't spend time investigating the ladies side, I'm sure it is not that much different from the personal rest room of the five star hotel I was staying in. I don't recall the artificial sound effects (perhaps reserved for public spaces?) though I do remember reading through the manual a few times to figure out the technology (user interface in Japanese wasn't of much help).

With the space hotel's planned opening in 2012, perhaps more of us need to get used to this type of technology. It seems a precursor to weightless travel to expect an operations manual to come with your toilet seat. Although with a $1M plus daily rates in space, maybe it is still sufficient for most of us to practice toilet technology on earth -- in Japan.