Long time no see!!!

A little bit before Naomi, Sheon and Zen left for Japan we got to have John and his boy Marley come by! For those of you who haven't heard the story, John's wife Eiko (who is in Hawaii) was the first foreigner for us to meet, a week after moving to Japan in 1986. Naomi was a five month old baby. (She's 27 now!)

So the kids are still gone in Japan.
While they're gone I'm doing some work in their rooms,
and these are a couple of decorations I get to see ...

 

In Naomi's room, photos, and one of her and me at her SEIJINSHIKI (Coming of Age Ceremony) When she was 20.

Then in Sheon's room, a photo of her and me... making me think about how much I miss them.

Then, yesterday Zen goes and puts this as his facebook profile!

Ok, so they're in Japan...and I have been meaning to do an "Ode" to the Japanese toilet.

They are given their own rooms, separate from the baths (which, in all honesty, finally does make sense to me~ I had wondered why in San Francisco houses often had them that way too).

Our last trip to Japan, while in Kyoto we stopped at this one restroom~ 

I just loved the old roof tiles on the ground arranged in such a lovely decorative way. Not to mention the doors leading into the restroom.

One evening, while out at dinner at a renovated farmer's warehouse (I think) there was this restroom. It's rather typical. Having the little sink there, where we can wash our hands after flushing. That water then gets recycled into the toilet. Yes, this is rather old style. I loved the "curtain"!

Now, here at another nice UNAGI- (Eel) restaurant, I got to see what I haven't seen for a little while. Where the sound of flushing is played so that others in other stalls don't have to hear what you're doing.
You can see the toilet's plugged in too. It will be turned on in winter and be warm to the derriere.

This has been what was typical. What I lived with for about twenty years. No, wait... there was no flushing! So this was "luxury"!! 

There's actually a toilet bowl- seat that can sit over this flushing toilet. What I lived with was like an "outhouse" inside our houses. A vacuum truck would come once a month to vacuum it out. There are still homes like that. I did get a toilet bowl to sit over the ceramic drop-toilet like the one below. No flush... right... "roughing" it.

Recently Ischin moved into a house that had a toilet like the one below...

see... sometimes you'll still see signs like this: "How to use..."

But in Ischin's house they had this kind of "bowl" put in.
which not only you could SIT on, but people can plug it in to heat up too! Considering there's been really no insulation in older homes, and no central heating, winters are SO cold and... a warm toilet seat honestly is heavenly!

So, these are some pics from  my last trip to Japan. 

And then this last bathroom I had the pleasure of "visiting" was the best luxury on this day that I flew from Nagoya to Narita, Tokyo, when I had a five hour layover there before my flight to San Francisco. Because of my Sky Mileage membership I could use the lounge. 

Here I could shower, change, and even be on line! 

The toilet was simple, but this chance I had to "freshen" up was the best.... oh.... but also....

The free food and drink at the lounge while I waited, also helped!

      

We're hoping the kids get to enjoy lounging like that on their way back too!