The WC

I got the thinking about how my bathroom is set up after a comment on a previous post asked if I had a toilet when I got here or if I had to buy one. In response, yes, I did already have one when I arrived. In fact, my bathroom appears to be a self-contained unit with a few water pipes and an electrical connection. Let me explain.

Japan, being a very small and therefore very space conscious place, has gifted we with an ingenious setup. Since the rooms are single occupant, you would obviously never really need to use the sink and shower at the same time. Thus, there is a valve that one uses to divert the flow of water coming into the bathroom either to the sink faucet or to the showerhead. Moreover, there are drains in all the normal places, but an additional one against the wall in the floor. So, if a person were to fill the tub entirely too high such that the overflow drain couldn’t take the displaced water when they got in, any large volume that went over the edge of the tub would fall harmlessly on the seamless floor and drain down into the same pipes that the tub and sink use normally. I promise I’ll post pictures of the whole set up once I’ve bought a new camera. In the meantime, though, you’ll just have to use your imagination. Oh yeah, and the flush handle on the toilet twists on 2 directions. Left for chiisai (small) and right for ookii (big).