Story: Number One in the Number Two Business: The Magic Toilets of Tokyo

Within ten minutes of my arrival in downtown Tokyo I’m in a car accident. I’m busy in the back seat being dazzled by the bustle and futuristic high-rises of Shinjuku when my taxi plows into another, lurching to a halt with that particular car-crash thud that sounds like nothing else. Thanks to the seat belts our only injuries are the wrinkles in our clothes.

The traffic creeps around us gingerly as my driver gets out to confer with the driver of the other car. If this were New York City the situation would immediately devolve into a shouting match with threats and insults in cartoon clouds above everyone’s head. But in Tokyo the drivers examine the damage solemnly and exchange a few quiet words. The cars are determined to be drivable so our taxi continues to the hotel before heading to the garage. I instantly realize that I’ve never before been to a place that is at once so frenetic and yet so calm.

We arrive at our destination, the Park Hyatt Tokyo, Shinjuku and it immediately reaffirms a sense of calm and order. I over-tip my driver for his troubles as the bellmen load my gear onto their trolley (with room to spare for my emotional baggage) before leading me through the tranquil Zen of an almost featureless lobby to the elevators. Surprisingly, the lobby isn’t on the ground floor but 39 stories above. This hotel comprises the top 14 floors of a high-rise office tower. After a fast ride up I exit the elevators to a spacious triple-height atrium with skylights providing copious light from above, which is exactly where architect Frank Lloyd Wright thought light should always come from and I agree.

Meandering hallways lead me from the bright atrium past one of the hotel’s restaurants where people smoker heavily, through a library area, to the reception area where I am seated across a desk from a dark-suited clerk who bows profusely and offers me mineral water or green tea while we tend to the unpleasantries of paperwork. If it weren’t for the offer of refreshments I’d feel as if I were sitting across from my bankers; that is if my bank were to re-imagine itself as a nexus of Zen modernism.

A few minutes later I am inside another elevator and I’m finally zooming up to my room, thinking all the while of every scene I can remember from Sofia Coppola’s enigmatic film Lost in Translation that was shot in several of the spaces I just walked through.

Everything about the spacious room impresses me, from the tasteful, chic décor to the posh, cloud-like bed with its silken sheets, the vibrant flat-screen HDTV, the incredibly intricate tea set on the mini bar and all manner of efficient electronic devices. But the signature feature of the rooms at this hotel is the view. It is breathtaking. In my usual circus of button pushing that is part of my customary Japanese hotel room shakedown I discover that the blackout drapes are motorized and will zoom open at the touch of a button. Though I’m reticent to even think about closing them, as the panoramic view of Tokyo is astonishing. I can hardly wait to see it at night.

I’ve been in my share of skyscrapers before, including some record-setters. I’ve strapped crampons to my boots and hiked to higher elevations than the top of this hotel. And yet there is something remarkable about my perch atop of the Park Hyatt Shinjuku. Every window from which I look has a view that seems as if perfectly composed through a wide-angle lens. After storm clouds roll through in the late afternoon of my first day there I see the sun set over the city and the summit of Mt. Fuji in the far distance, a sight I am told later is rare from the city limits as clouds usually obscure the view of the summit.

The Japanese are known for their attention to detail and my accommodations are no exception. Everything has been thought of. Every bit of the room is in order and is meticulously clean. It is all I can do to tear myself away from the windows. However there is something else that is special about my room at the Park Hyatt: the bathroom. In a ritual almost as old as time itself, I draw myself a hot bath upon my arrival in any new place that has the appropriate facilities. My room has a particularly deep soaking tub which I promptly fill whilst keeping an eye and ear out for anything unusual. My caution stems from a bathing experience across town at the Imperial Hotel in which music automatically began to play from hidden speakers when the water level in the tub rose to a certain level. As if that were not enough, just before I slipped into the hot water there was a gentle knock at the door. On the other side was a hotel employee bearing an extra supply of bath oil, which I accepted gratefully in stunned disbelief. I wondered what other sensors might be wired into my room and if someone else would come to shampoo my hair. And I couldn’t wait to see what staff member would be automatically summoned as soon as I lifted the toilet seat.

As if I am not already completely sold on the notion of the superiority of Japanese culture it is the toilet in my suite at the Park Hyatt Shinjuku that clinches it. With perhaps the exception of green tea Kit-Kats, I believe Japanese electronic toilets are the apogee of human technological innovation.

Japan has its detractors to be sure. I’d wager that if you were to ask your average man or woman on the street in China, Korea or Vietnam their opinion of Japan you might get some interesting answers. The Japanese are perhaps envied, hated, sometimes copied. They are criticized for their historical mistakes and aggression. But if one has the good fortune to visit Japan and to really get to know the country, I have no doubt they'll conclude that there is a lot of admire about it. The hard-working Japanese are well respected for their innovation, technology and engineering. Japanese cities are exceedingly clean and graffiti-free. Children are taught to respect their elders. They are also instructed from an early age to respect the property of others. I have heard stories about people who have lost wallets in Tokyo and have gotten them back with everything (including their cash) inside.

There is the remarkable story of the Japanese economy rising like a phoenix out of the ashes in the 1940's. This economic recovery is more significant when one considers that Japan is the only country in the history of the world upon which atomic weapons have been used. In the 1950's the idea that the Japanese automobile industry could ever rival that of the USA for supremacy would have garnered laughter and ridicule. Now Japan has the second largest economy in the world and is one of the leading industrialized countries. They lead the world in manufacturing, technology, automobiles, heavy equipment, optics, electronics, and much more. One can look to the history books for proof of this, read the well-documented research, or one can merely sit on a Japanese toilet and have my conjecture instantly confirmed.

Apparently about seventy percent of households in Japan have a toilet like the one in my hotel suite at the Park Hyatt. If you ever use one you will instantly wonder why they are not widely known in the United States as they make our toilets look like outhouses in comparison. The first thing you see when you roll up on a Japanese electronic toilet is a control panel located on and arm which protrudes to the left or right side of the seat. An array of buttons, in Japanese and English, provides control for hard and soft sprays (with adjustable pressure), bidet and drier. When you sit the comfortable warmth of the heated seat immediately surprises you. An electric eye also activates an exhaust fan to remove any unpleasant odors from inside the bowl (obviously from the ones coming out of you). A small control on the back end of the panel allows one to increase the speed of this quiet little exhaust fan.

From there you do whatever business needs to get done. When you decide you are finished, you hit the spray button and a small wand protrudes from the back of the toilet rim (I assume this is how it works. I obviously was not able to observe this as I was seated during use) and a delightfully gentle stream of warm water cleanses your undercarriage. As the end of the wand is in a fixed position in the middle of the bowl, I found that some movement and adjustment of one's nether regions allowed the stream to nicely clean all affected areas. I increased and decreased the pressure and then selected the undulating spray function that made the wand do all of the movement. But I must confess that my preference was for the strong stream. With the bidet function, the wand moves ever further towards the front. From the tiny figure on the button I surmise this was intended for women to be able to cleanse themselves. But it was not unpleasant for a man either. I suppose I can generally endorse having a gentle spray or stream of warm water directed at one's nether regions. It was delightful and much more civilized than toilet paper.

When the cleaning was done I turned off the myriad sprays and streams with lingering regret and selected the dry function. With this a warm breeze began to blow within the bowl to dry what had just been cleaned. This function was also nice. But despite my patience I could never quite get it to dry completely. The effect was somewhat like that of the hand-blowers in public bathrooms. They do dry some of the water from your hands but never quite seem to get it all. A little bit of an extra paper blot is all you need for the process to be complete and for you to exit the bathroom as fresh as a daisy.

After an E ticket ride on this marvel of plumbing technology, I was once again free to sit in calm, stunned silence at the incredible vistas outside my windows, while eating some more green tea Kit-Kats all the while wondering just what it was that Bill Murray whispered into the ear of Scarlett Johansson in the last reel of Lost in Translation. Somehow it is more fun not to know.