Having just fitted my mother-in-law`s irrigation system for her garden I went for a bath. A Japanese bath is a pleasure that is not difficult to describe. The bathroom is tiled throughout and there is a small stool to sit on so that you can wash thoroughly with the hand shower before entering the bath tub.
You see Japanese baths aren`t for cleaning yourself they are for complete relaxation and an enjoyment of the sensory indulgence of water. First you sit, low to the floor, on the little stool and shower and scrub yourself clean. The water system is fully controlled from the toilet to the bath by Toto, some sort of computerised wizard that hides behind the wall and makes sure everything is exactly right. I keep thinking of Kansas but I am not sure why, anyway, Toto is just brilliant.
Look away now if you are of delicate disposition because I am going to describe the toilet. This is just an instrument of hospitality that is difficult to imagine, the seat is carefully warmed to a comfortable tempreture, thankyou Toto, and to your left, just above the toilet role holder, is a small panel with touch buttons. Above each button is a discrete logo describing the function touching it will provide, a gentle spray of water, a good sloosh or the complete Trafalgar Square fountain, all can be provided once nature has taken it`s course.
At the touch of a button a tube extends from underneath the toilet seat to position its nozzle perfectly beneath your sitting position (I do hope I am being delicate about this). The small hum and the efficient movement rather reminds me of something emerging from a Thunderbirds pod. Then your nether region is treated to a cleaning jet of water which is at a rather relaxingly warm tempreture until you press the off button. For those of you under Freudian annalysis you may never get to the moment when that off button gets pushed. However, once you do then you get to press the other button, the one that sends a warm air jet to sensitively dry you off.
Toto thinks of everything. On standing Toto performs its final act of total care by issuing forth a puff of air freshner around the toilet rim. Maybe this all seems a bit anal, and in truth it is, but the real point here is the attention to detail. As I sat in the bath tub, once I had finished cleaning of the dirt of the irrigation installation, I thought about this attention to detail that pervades Japanese society and makes me feel like I never want to leave.
Toto quietly and efficiently kept my bath water at exactly the tempreture of choice, I set the control panel above the taps at 40 degrees and Toto measures the tempreture of the water and everytime it drops by a margin of 5% the pump sets into action and draws water out of the bath, through the heating element and back into the bath in order to maintain the correct level of comfort. So there I was sitting in the depth of water, not a shallow trough but a deep basin in which you are immersed up to your neck, and thinking about returning to London. Streets covered with litter and rubbish, the all pervasive atmosphere of tension, stress and violence, the pollution, the noise and most of all the wailing sirens that scream into your nervous system day and night.
Yes, as I sat in the bath, enjoying a beer and listening to the comparative silence and peace of Meguro, London seemed to me to be something to suffer not to enjoy. The streets around here are connected with small walkways between incredibly compact houses. The main street across the road is comprised of all sorts of traders, the men wearing small hand towels, rolled and wrapped around their heads in a band, the women, small but tough, fast hands and fingers that feed yen to the hungry tills.
Everyone stares at me as I walk down the road, they look, see me return their gaze, look quickly away and then try to sneak another look thinking I haven`t noticed. Children dismiss manners and just stare, mouths wide open, as their mothers drag them along the street. What more could you want when you go shopping, I just love it. So now I need to go and stuff some sushi... down my mouth. Hmmm, sushi, that smell of raw fish, so beautiful and yet so deadly. I went to the best sushi bar in the world the other day... but that is a story for next time. Love Jack
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