Flushomatic 4000

January was rockin’! Here in Japan Denise and I have stayed very busy, but we’ve had a great time doing it. First of all, let me begin with an apology for the fiasco that was my first attempt at my mass email. I ended up having to send it to everyone individually because for some reason my hotmail account would corrupt it if I sent it to more than one person. I know, I know… Switch to Gmail. I just might have to if this keeps up. In order to simplify my life I am going to follow the example of my lovely wife and create this blog. It should be simple to access for everyone and hopefully no more broken attachments.
So back to January. I’ve spent most of the month on the road collecting frequent flyer miles and Starwood hotel points (I’m a little bit of a points junkie). Denise and I started the month off with a quick weekend getaway to the New Sanno Hotel in downtown Tokyo. This is a hotel that is owned and operated by the Navy and anyone with a military ID can stay there. Don’t worry, if any of you come to visit us, we’ll sneak you in (but bring your ID!). The place is gorgeous and is SUPER cheap. We paid 50 bucks a night while the going rate at a similar hotel down the street would be 300+. I surprised Denise with a night in Tokyo for our anniversary (two years and still going strong!). The place was nice, but the highlight was definitely the amazing brunch they served there. Those of you that are seafood lovers would have been in Heaven. They served shrimp, oysters, salmon, fresh sushi, etc. Of course, Denise and I didn’t touch any of it, but we still had plenty to choose from. Even though it was early, I was partial to the HUGE piece of roast beef they were shaving slices from. This thing had to be 50+ pounds. I had mine with a little horseradish and I’ll tell you what, it was hot! I love horseradish, but this must have been some kind of mutant Japanese horseradish (maybe a cross with some of the local wasabi???). This stuff hits your mouth like an atomic bomb. The interesting thing is, once it’s blasted your sinuses out and just when you think you’re going to cry, it dissipates in the blink of an eye. Strange, I know.
After the huge brunch, we took a little nap and then started exploring downtown. We road the trains (more on that later), checked out the Ginza (makes shopping on 5th Ave in New York look like Walmart), and sampled a couple of restaurants. We found what appeared to be a very cool Iranian restaurant that we wanted to sample, but we ran out of time due to its crazy hours. Denise was mostly excited about finding a Nathan’s Hot Dogs restaurant right near our hotel (which also happens to be next door to the LDS Tokyo Temple). For those of you that have never sampled a Nathan’s Hot Dog, you need to (Lewis knows what I’m talking about!). Now, its no J Dawg, but its close.
The most interesting thing on our little getaway, except for maybe the six brand new Ferraris, two brand new Lamborghinis, two Bentleys, and countless Porsche/Mercedes/BMWs that I saw in less than 24 hours, was something that might not quite make it to the level of dinner table conversation, but I have to share it anyway. Denise doesn’t think it’s a very good story, but we’ll let you all be the judge. Many of you have heard me describe (and some of you have experienced) the toilets in China which are basically just a hole in the ground. Well, you the Japanese are about as far from that as you can get. Their toilets look like something out of StarTrek, complete with control panel. They do everything from warming the seat and dispensing a poof of potpourri spray (“Has someone been arranging lilacs in here”–Jeff Foxworthy) to making a pleasant little noise meant to disguise any less than pleasant little noises that may emanate from the area. They also have a bidet function that is one of those things that I believe everyone has always wondered about (or maybe it’s just me? Those crazy Frenchies). Anyway, the only problem with all this fancy technology is that the control panel is all in Japanese. So, being the curious sort that I am, when the opportunity presented itself at the Outback Steakhouse in Roppongi Hills, I was ready to give it a go, but still a little hesitant. I will liken the experience to that of being 16 years old and calling the first girl I ever asked out on a date. You’re pretty sure everything will go well, I mean hey, what’s the worst that could happen, but at the same time there is that level of concern in the back of your mind that things just might go terribly wrong. So as I sat there, I decided to go for it and I started pushing buttons. Let me tell you, once that button was pushed I was brought back 10 years and it was just like hitting the last button in the girl’s phone number. At this point, at least since the advent of caller ID and *69, you are committed. So as I sat there, with the sound of some electric motors, the Flushomatic 4000 started to spin up and then it happened, the “Hello” of the bidet function. It catches you completely off guard and you really don’t know what to do so you stammer and fidget and hope it will all just go away. After a second or two of awkwardness you start to get in your groove and you realize “hey, this isn’t so hard. I can talk to her, no problem.” And you know what, you can talk to her, and it’s not that bad.” However, remember how I said “what’s the worst that could happen?” Well, I’ll tell you what’s the worst that can happen, you get done what you need to get done, and then realize you don’t have an exit strategy; you have no idea how to end this “call.” So I started pushing buttons and hoped for the best. I figured, okay, just push the same button again and it should stop; wrong! Okay, how about the one next to it; wrong again. Okay what about the two that have the Chinese characters for big and small (some of the few characters here I recognize); nope, wrong once more. The button marked small did lower the pressure of the little nozzle, but that’s it. Nothing was going to turn this crazy thing off! So at this point I’m trapped; I’ve tried everything I know and nothing good is happening. So what’s the last refuge of the damned in this situation? Hang up and hope to fight another day. Well wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what was required. The little machine started making its crazy noises again and then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over. What a wild ride!
Well, I didn’t think that story would go on quite as long as it did, so I think I’m going to have to put the rest of January’s adventures in a separate entry that will be released sometime next week. I hope everyone is doing well and that you’ve all got something fun planned for Valentine’s Day. We miss you all!