A really stupid question but is there anyone that know how to turn of the heat on the Toto toilet rings we have here in Japan? I know, stupid question but this drives me nuts. When a toilet comes with an safety warning it is time to get scared. I stay in the usual Leopalace21 type of room and they all have those toilet. Since I simply can't find an setting for this on the control board i simply unplug the whole d..n thing. To bad since it is nice to have the radio, spraying, scenting etc that also are build in.

Second question, I know that Meg milk is a brand but is it also any difference from normal milk? It tastes differently and contain less calories. I have not really figured out what that meg milk in smaller blue containers are either. It is not Yogurt at least. New things to learn every day.

In China, I'm just happy if the toilet has a toilet seat that no one has a) left footprints on b) left something nastier than footprints on.

I'm a Chinese user, so I'm afraid I can't help you, but reading this has totally made my evening, so thank you for that!

I may be mistaken but I think they cool down when you leave and heat up when you come close to them. I think meg milk has magnesium in it but I may be wrong on that too.

I wonder how anyone can still concentrate on doing what has to been done on a toilet like that.

And I thought my country was modern...

@ddapore99, that is right. There is an motion sensor in the evil thing that feels when you are near and heat it up and open the lid. The problem is that mine gets way to hot. Further there is an sensor that detects when you are sitting on it and flushes every now and then to keep it fresh. On top of that there is also the usual sprayers and a scenting thing that detects odor. Then we also have a fan that blow dry your butt. My favorite is still when the lid opens and you see a 30 by 30 cm warning text about everything you should not do with the toilet. Naturally you have an dashboard for the evil thing that would make any jumbo jet jealous. Today I actually did get so tired of this that I did call the manufacturer and learned that there is an screw under the dash board where you can lower the temperature. You can't turn it off, but at least you can make it less hot. Finally I understand why japan uses so much electricity per capita. All the vending machines alone uses one nuclear reactor together to keep them cold and or warm. I love Japan but some things are just to strange. Since we need to preserve electricity now after the tsunami/nuclear/earthquake problems they have closed the elevator in my building (I live on the 22th floor right now) but I still, in the middle of a very hot summer, have a very hot toilet. Priorities anyone?

Speaking of messed up priorities why do they turn the air off on the trains durring rush hour but leave it on when nobody is riding? I don't think I'll ever get the Japanese mind set.

What I have the hardest to accept is the fixation with time plans. Every time it rains hard here the buses to UD truck are delayed. No idea why. When the buses however come there can be 1000 people waiting for the bus in a long line in the rain. The bus fills up and then sit and waits. Even though there are ten empty buses after him in an queue the driver will follow the time schedule and will not leave until the exact time. This drives me nut! Where is the flexibility? On the other hand, this mind set is also why everything usually is so extremely efficient here. Even during the earthquakes it worked like a clock work. Amazing. Love Japan and Japanese people but yes, some things are hard to understand for a deported Swedish soul. Still, I could easily live my whole life in Japan. Will not happen though since my wife is Chinese;-)

Same here in China, I always hope it's just an issue of (lack of) communication between people, and not that they think it makes sense.

In New York we have the phenomenon of the subway train that sits and waits at the platform with its doors open; when another train arrives across the track, all the people who want to transfer to the other train get ready to rush across, but the waiting train closes its doors just in time so nobody can get on. It's almost as if they're doing it on purpose to spite commuters.

James