Literal Bathroom

This is our bathroom. That thing on the right is about a meter deep tub. That thing on the left is the shower.

In our house we have two restrooms with one toilet each. This is our bathroom. There is no combined room. The Japanese do not do that, probably to save space or something, but I think it's strange to not have the shower and tub combined.

The monitor above the tub faucet controls the temperature of the water in the tub. You can't see it, but there is a circle underneath the tub faucet that takes in water from the tub and circulates it to maintain the temperature that is set on the monitor. That monitor also talks to me, but like everything else, I don't know what it is saying to me. Pictures help.

The shower is basically a rubber floor mat, a temperature control, and the faucet goes either there or another one just like it but higher.

Don't worry, the bathroom window is frosted and the door is like a school bus door and seals the water in, so what gets wet in the bathroom, stay in the bathroom.

Japanese Addresses

More like "wtf is this?" or "how am I supposed to know how to get there?"

That above is our house address. I don't know what it says. I don't know what it means. The neighbors' plates look completely different, so it's not as if they change slightly because of the number differentiation. Nope, I have no clue what they tell natives about our house.

Our address is 1146-22 Yamato-cho. Yamato-cho is the neighborhood in which we live. I don't know what the numbers correspond to. Thankfully the taxi drivers know how the number translate to where to go. Someone else who lives in our cho, but in a different part, has totally different numbers－before and after the dash. I wouldn't know how to tell people what our Japanese address looks like if they want to write a letter (you could just send it to the numerical address above). Some houses have these a few don't...I don't know.

I think it would be great to find out what the heck that means, but really it's not that big of a deal so long as we know where we live and I don't have to try to say the above characters. I wouldn't know where to start.

Vending Machines

Yes, vending machines. You might be thinking, "How could vending machines really be any different than in America?" Well, I thought the same thing when I got here. It's a vending machine, you can't go much different than inserting money and receiving a drink after pushing a button. Well, that's the basic part of it.

What is so different here in Japan is that these vending machines are everywhere. That is not an exaggeration. I'm not kidding you one bit. These vending machines are placed everywhere like Subway Restaurants, McDonald's, or a Starbucks. Everywhere. Across the street from each other. Right down the block. On the same block. Yes everywhere.

See these vending machines here on the right? They are the same ones in the picture above. But did you catch the red square in the left of this photo? THAT is another drink machine. I am not kidding. You can see that they are just a few yards away from each other.

And down the hill, almost to the main road just around the corner is yet another set of vending machines just like the ones pictured here.

Also note that this is in my cho. It's not on some highly-trafficked area but on a hill in a neighborhood. I don't know how often these things get restocked but they typically always have enough drinks in them. They mostly have cold drinks in them, but occasionally they serve hot drinks. It all depends on which one you go to and what it happens to have in it. See, the white one on the right has mostly teas and coffees, while the red one has mostly sodas and fruity drinks.

Well, this has been the first of "WTF Wednesdays" (AKA "Yep, the Japanese have that" AKA "Whatever I feel like righting about on Wednesday that you might find interesting") I hope you've learned something about Japan and be sure to come back!

New Series

When I decided to introduce the two new series that I'm going to be writing about (at least try to) weekly, I had to think to myself, "What if I'm talking about more than one series, what's the plural form of 'series'?" And it turns out there does not exist a word for multiple series. I would have thought "serieses" would work, but the annoying little red line appears underneath it. So I'll just try not to confuse you with saying "series" when I'm talking about introducing multiple ones and not just one series...

Anyway, the one I'm most excited about is going to be called "What I miss most" and it will feature whatever it is that I don't have access to here in Sasebo but is still in America. I've got plenty of these things just waiting to be written about all lined up. You can look for this weekly and maybe it will find out there waiting.

The other series that will be new is going to be called "Yep, the Japanese have that here" and I think it's one that you are going to be most excited about since it will feature crazy things that seem odd, different, unique, or any other thing I mind find at the last minute I think you might mind interesting.

Remember that I am 13 hours ahead of the East Coast so my Monday is not necessarily my Monday when I feel like posting something each week.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you come back on Monday for the first "What I miss most"!