Japan trip day 4

Brian Hart
February 24, 2024

Toilets

Before we get into Day 4, I want to talk toilets. Japan is known for having fancy toilets, but how fancy? Here are the hotels I stayed at, in order:

	Heated water	Heated seat	Water pressure	Self flushing	Dryer	Auto open lid
Asakusa View Hotel Rokku	❌	❌	Not great but passable	✅	❌	❌
Hotel Metropolitan Kamakura	✅	❌	Average	✅	❌	❌
Hotel Granvia Kyoto	✅	❌	Good	✅	❌	✅
My house	✅	✅	Great	❌	✅	✅

The hotels got progressively better during the trip, but our Toto S550E at home outperforms the average hotel toilet in Japan (n=3). I will say that every hotel I’ve ever stayed at anywhere in the world (with the sole exception being the Lake Nona Wave Hotel) has toilets worse than the worst Japanese toilet.

Moving on…

Day 4

Today I wanted to explore other parts of Tokyo. I set my sights on Meiji Shrine, since it was in a different “neighborhood” / city, and it would take me to Shibuya. You possibly know Shibuya this famous crossing:

But before heading in that direction, I wanted to check out Asakusa Underground, which I was made aware of the night before. The description made it sound cyberpunk as hell, but it ended up being underwhelming and a little depressing. No big loss, though, as it’s at the subway station I needed to be at anyway.

The train ride from Asakusa to Shibuya took about an hour (that orange line) on an efficient subway line.

This is when I started to get an appreciation for how massive Tokyo is!

I did the obligatory walk across the Shibuya Scramble Crossing and then wandered around a bit, soaking up the culture. It’s busy and noisy, so I just kind of meandered through the shopping area in the direction of the temple, which took around half an hour.

Outside the entrance to the temple there’s a little cafe called CAFÉ Mori no Terrace I paused at to have a coffee, warm up from the chilly walk, and to people watch, after which I made my way into the park.

Jaunt jacket still in play

Meiji Jingu grounds

There was even this one area with a few restaurants that reminded me very much of Northern California and made me a bit ‘homesick’ for that old life:

After my time at the park and the temple, I hopped the subway and made my way back to Asakusa. Again I had sushi at the restaurant across from my hotel, wandered the neighborhood for a bit, then called it an early night.

Tomorrow: taking the train to Kamakura, plus a snow storm!