OSAKA BATH ROOM LUXURIES -JAPAN JOURNEY

Finally we reached Shin-Osaka Esaka Tokyu REI Hotel.

Whenever we travel anywhere in India or abroad, I sincerely try to travel very light but somehow end up lugging heavy suitcases, which become heavier day by day with what little things we buy, as we tend to mostly do window shopping.

When we went to New Zealand, we found many Australian couples on tour, breezing around happily with dainty suitcases. One fine day to satisfy my mounting curiosity, I asked one of them as to what they were doing with their abundant purchases, and she said they were sending everything home by post, but for us this would cost more than our shopping expenses, so I didn’t even dare to suggest it to my husband.

On reaching the hotel, from the van we had to lug our suitcases to the hotel, which had a display board.

We found, to our surprise, many shops and stalls.

We could finally access our hotel via an escalator, which was on the first floor.

The lobby area was very spacious but had very little seating.

There was a money exchange machine in the lobby and a newspaper vending machine too.

The front desk staff was very courteous, and with the help of our guide’s translational skills, we took our room keys and went to our rooms.

As this was our first hotel in Japan and the country was supposed to be thickly populated, I was curious about our room and its facilities .

The room was of average size; usual standard toiletries to meet our needs were kept in large containers and were of a very good quality.

The beds were placed at a lower level, were clean, and were very firm and comfortable with a ''wheat" pillow.

Drinks and snacks vending machines could be seen in each floor.

There were ice machines too.

The bathroom area was made up of two parts—the powder room and the toilet area—with individual doors.

The toilets in Japan need a special mention. The word "toire" is an abbreviated form of "toilet," and the plain word for "toilet" is "benjo," a place of convenience or place of excrement.

There are two styles of toilets commonly found in Japan; the oldest type is a simple squat toilet, which is still common in public places.

The current state of the art of western-type toilets is the bidet type, commonly called washlets, and includes many advanced features.

After World War II, modern Western-type flush toilets became common in Japan.
The feature set commonly found on washlets is anal hygiene, bidet washing, seat warming, and deodorization.

Japanese toilets are well known in popular culture and often parodied in comedic works set in Japan.

While our toilet looked like a Western-style toilet at first glance, there were numerous additional features such as a blow dryer, seat heating, massage options, water jet adjustments, automatic lid opening, and automatic flushing. 

Generally these features are accessed by a control panel attached to the seat or mounted on a nearby wall.

The most basic feature is the integrated bidet, a nozzle the size of a pencil that comes out from underneath the toilet seat and squirts water.

It has two settings: one for washing the anus and one for the bidet. The former is called posterior wash, general use, or family cleaning, and the latter is known as feminine cleaning, feminine wash, or simply bidet.

At no point does the nozzle actually touch the body of the user. The nozzle is also self-cleaning and cleans itself before and after operation. The user can select to wash the anus or vulva by pressing the corresponding button on the control panel.

Usually the same nozzle is used for both operations, but at a different position of the nozzle head, and using different openings in the nozzle to squirt water at a different angle to aim for the correct spot. Occasionally, two nozzles are used, each dedicated for one area. The control logic is also attached to a pressure switch or a proximity sensor in the toilet seat and operates only when the seat is occupied.

Most high-tech toilets allow water temperature and water pressure to be adjusted to match the preferences of the user. By default, the vulva receives less pressure than the anus. Researchers in Japan have found that most users prefer a water temperature slightly above body temperature, with 38 °C considered optimal.

The nozzle position can also often be manually adjusted forward or aft. High-end wash lets you select vibrating and pulsating jets of water, claimed by manufacturers to be beneficial for constipation and hemorrhoids, otherwise known as piles.

The most advanced washlet can mix the water jet with soap for an improved cleaning process.

Another frequent feature is a blow dryer, often adjustable between 40°C and 60°C, used to dry the washed areas.

Other features may include a heated seat, especially useful in cold weather, an automatic lid equipped with a proximity sensor, which opens and closes based on the location of the user, and an air dryer and deodorizer. Some play music to relax the user's sphincter. 

Recently, researchers have added medical sensors into these toilets, which can measure the blood sugar based on the urine and also measure the pulse, blood pressure, and body fat content of the user.

In Japanese culture, there is a tendency to separate areas into  clean  and  unclean, and the contact between these areas is minimized. The inside of the house is considered a clean area, whereas the outside of the house is considered unclean.

To keep the two areas separated, shoes are taken off before entering the house so that the unclean shoes do not touch the clean area inside of the house. Historically, toilets were located outside of the house, a feature that was very common in India too previously, and shoes were worn for a trip to the toilet.

Nowadays, the toilet is almost always inside the home, and hygienic conditions have improved significantly, but the toilet is still considered an unclean area in Japan.

To minimize contact between the unclean toilet floor and the clean floor in the rest of the house, many private homes and also some public toilets have toilet slippers in front of the toilet door that should be used when in the toilet and removed immediately after leaving the toilet.

Both the sink, toilet, and bath are in separate rooms. The sink is usually in a small changing area connected to the bathroom that also has the washing machine, while the toilet is completely separate.

Ofuro is an important part of the lifestyle of the Japanese, who after a long day's work come home looking forward to relaxing and warming themselves in wooden bathtubs.

This ritual, which does not seek to cleanse the body but the mind, was already put into practice by the Egyptians, who 5,000 years ago had discovered the benefits of this type of bathing.

In Japan, baths are normally taken in three different places: the Ofuro (own house), the Sento (Japanese communal baths), and the Onsen (Japanese hot springs).

Ofuro is the most common form of bathing in Japan, as more Japanese can afford to have a bathtub at home.

In Japan, families bathe in order. The eldest and male members go first. In a typical family, the order would be first the grandfather, then the father, the son, the grandmother, the mother, and lastly, the daughter.

In the bathing area there is a shower hose or a bucket of water with which to rinse. On the bathroom floor, next to the bathtub, there is usually a stool where one can sit down to lather their hair and body. And then, only when they have rinsed their whole body can they enter the bathtub.

It is essential to wash thoroughly before entering the bath, as this is where all members of the family bathe and must be kept clean.

Modern Ofuro bathtubs have temperature control.

Their design is rectangular, and they measure about 60 to 70 cm and are deeper than western bathtubs.

The water in the Ofuro is usually around 40 degrees. This high temperature helps the body relax and keep warm, and this is why they normally bathe before going to bed, as they believe it helps fall asleep and removes the stress from the body.

Since the new bathtubs have a temperature control, it helps save water, as it can be kept warm. Depending on its use, water can be reused for days. In large families, where parents and children take daily baths, the baths are usually refilled once or twice a week.

The Japanese are extremely conscious of wasting water and use an innovative system to recycle the water they discard from their bathtubs. After the water is no longer useful for their baths, they connect their tubs to a washing machine and use this water to wash their clothes.

Our bathroom had a control panel that needed a lot of figuring out; there were buttons for keeping the bath water at a consistent temperature and temperature selection for the showerheads too, as well as a multitude of other functions.

In residential houses these panels exist in the kitchen too so that one can control the bath from the kitchen.

Modern, hi-tech bathrooms have different fan settings, which include cold and hot air, so clothes dry really quickly if one hangs them up in the bathroom and put the fan on.