I took some photos on our trip from Tokyo to Osaka last week of one rest area (called a Parking Area/PA or Service Area/SA in Japan).
Some rest stops are pretty big with Mc Donald's and sit down type Japanese restaurants and 7-11 type stores. Some also have Starbucks but the ones that don't certainly have all the vending machines one could ever need. This machine offers pretty great coffee! You can select many types of coffees, sizes, black, sugar, cream etc. There is English under the Japanese so that helps for us foreigners!
Here are just some of the choices...after you choose, you can view your coffee being brewed on the TV screen. When I took this photo, the lid was being placed on the cup.
The cup then appears in the little door but don't take it out until you see the red lights completely lit up in the little bar next to the door!And the restrooms themselves can be very interesting. Narration below each of the photos.
First thing you see at this particular rest room, is an electronic sign showing you which stalls are available and which are occupied, and what you will find in each one (Japanese style toilet, Western Style, etc). My husband tells me that this is not in the Men's room.
After consulting the sign board, you can proceed to the stall you want.
All the 'Western Style' toilets have heated toilet seats and controls for 2 kinds of 'bidet' washing and a button to push for the toilet to make a loud flushing sound without actually using water to flush (so that no one has to hear 'your business'). Some also have a button for blow drying!
Some restrooms have instructions on how to use the automated toilet seats. Now we can have the "Powerful Deoderizer" function defined!!! Whew....
Just incase you were wondering how use the toilet itself....
How to flush the toilet can be different in every place you go it seems, thankfully this one has things spelled out in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. However, some translation may still be necessary for some as normally we flush the toilet with water, not 'pour' it!
Mother's of young children will appreciate the child seats in some of the stalls. Some common sense warnings are posted, don't turn your back on your child to do your make-up, don't let the child crawl around and play on the seat, watch fingers and of course, don't let your baby smoke in these seats!
The lovely hand washing area.
This sink is all automated. Hold your hands in front of each place with markings and water (center), soap and warm air (to dry your hands) to make it run.
And last but not least, here is a brand new 65 inch plasma TV on the wall showing the current (up to the minute) traffic information for the major highways one might be thinking of taking. Boy if this TV was on a wall at a rest area in USA, I doubt it would remain there for long! Sad but true....
