I saw Bush in Tokyo!

I was once in an airport bathroom on the way to Brasil when I heard an abnormally raucous fart emit from the stall to my left. My instinct immediately led me to lower my hovering squat in order to see what type of shoes belonged to the person or animal who created such a wonker. The dainty feet of the noisemaker were capped in soft ecru pantyhose and an equally delicate leather shoe. An old lady. Figures, I thought and went on with my usual pre-flight purchasing of nuts and water. I forgot about the incident.

But low and behold, I saw the same dainty feet and ecru hose not an hour later, seated across the aisle from me on my 8-hr flight. They were connected to a short women in her sixties who wore a matching ecru pantsuit and bright red lipstick. Though I slept, ate, diverted my attention with books and trips to the loo, I could not stop seeing those shoes in my peripheral and remarking to myself about the vociferous ass of the lady beside me.

I don’t know if the Japanese heard about people like me, who actually take the time to glance at a farter’s shoes. Or if they just don’t want to admit their bodies are even capable of making any such noises. But they have gone to great lengths to install a noise machine in every bathroom stall of Tokyo that creates a bubbling brook or fake flushing sound as soon as a body passes the sensor on the way to the seat. It is just one of the ways the Japanese take care to be clean, polite, and discreet.

The toilets also have warmed seats and hi-tech bidet capabilities. And this isn’t just in fancy shmancy places. The bubbling brook played in the toilet of the subway, which was also impeccably clean. Like the bathrooms, the streets, the parks, the people are all perfectly groomed and litter free. They have even devised a tray system that ensures any cashier does not have to touch a tourist’s dirty hand when giving him change. Speaking of dirty hands, they offer nice-smelling towels to wash with before every meal no matter what sort of restaurant you may find yourself in.

And… they wear dust masks. Some say it’s allergies. Others claim they have a cold and want to protect others. I think it’s just plain neurosis. Whatever the reason, I’d say at least 30 percent of the people wear dust masks. All the time! Inside. I saw a group of school children taking a picture on a fieldtrip. Half had masks covering all but their eyes. When they look back at pictures from childhood, they’ll never get to see what they looked like!

Even so, I wanted to get a taste of this cleanliness, so I went to a traditional onsen. It’s a public bath very popular among the Japanese. I went on a Sunday night along with half of Tokyo. People were there on dates; families were there together; groups of girls were there to gossip. All naked. In the co-ed areas, you must wear a traditional Japanese robe and, of course, take off any footwear. But afterward, it’s all nudity all the time. It’s very intimate yet it’s shared with a hundred women in a bunch of pools.

Wrapped in my fancy robe, I headed through the maze of restaurants, carnival games, and shops to the pre-bath area where I was given a towel and sent to a seated shower room where I had to get clean before getting clean. Then I hopped from pool to pool, each with a different purpose. The main pool was a tea color and supposedly piped in from a sulfurous hot spring 1400 meters underground. Then there were bubbly pools, cold pools, open-air pools, pools in oak barrels, and calm square pools. Of course I tried them all.

Then, after pooling myself out, I headed to this outdoor path where men and women can walk together and massage their feet as they go. It was about a half kilometer of knee-deep warm water full of little pebbles that were supposed to massage but felt more like daggers ripping through my skin. When I got to the end, I found a most ironic gathering. Back in October I posted about these funny humans who were letting fish eat the dead skin cells off their feet. Well now I’d come face to face with them, and for just 1500 yen, I could even be one. I jumped right in.

I guess I had an exorbitant amount of dead skin on my calves and feet because the fish instantly abandoned all the other dangling feet and attacked mine. It took all my strength to keep my dogs in the pool throughout all the tickling. Feet are ticklish anyway, but hundreds of little gray fishers giving fish blow jobs to my toes was pretty much unbearable. But I lasted the entire 15 minutes, and I haven’t stopped marveling at how smooth my feet are. I am honestly thinking about getting a tank of feet-sucking fish when I get back. Who knew? Oh yeah, the Japanese.