Family Toilet

This is a great one, the sign on the bathroom at the Fuji
Safari Park
said Family Toilet. The concept is supposed to
be a nice sized room where mommy or daddy can change baby, etc. But if
you had no idea, doesn’t it appear on the left that the room is
supposed to be for pregnant mothers and their husbands with bad knees?

A somewhat typical house

Here’s a nice image of a modern Japanese house, at least one in the
countryside. Plexiglass covered carport, and I didn’t notice it when we
passed by but I think that you can spot a solar water heater on the
awning. You see a lot more of that in Japan than in the US.

Circle K has it all

This shot really highlights how advanced this country is. We’re not in
the metropolis of Tokyo, but in the suburbs of Shizuoka Prefecture. In
fact, some Japanese would refer to this as a “country” area. But around
the corner from here, the Circle K convenience store can sell you blank
DVDs, ADSL splitters, line noise filters, USB mobile phone connector kits…

Get your motor running

The indash LCD of the Honda Odyssey lets us know many things as we are travelling the Tomei expressway. Here it is telling us what town and prefecture we are in, how many kilometers to the next rest area, when we can expect to arrive there, and that we can expect ¥850 in tolls when we get off the highway.

Touch pad sushi

I’m sure by now you’ve seen the conveyor belt sushi shops which are known as kaiten zushi. I had never actually been in one before,  but there’s now a new twist, one which shouldn’t be entirely unexpected if you know anything about Japan…

For those folks sitting at tables out of reach of the conveyor belt area, touch screens allow you to view the menu and place your order without the hassle of actually having to speak to your waiter or waitress.