Gundamaniac

Every first sunday of each month, many Japanese people would take out unwanted clutter from their home and take it to Togo shrine to sell it out as antiques. ^^; 

The Togo Shrine flea market happens every first sunday of the month, the shrine is located in Harajuku. so if one gets bored from looking around antiques you could always turn around the corner and check out the more lively area of Harajuku.
but don’t sell the Flea Market short, there might be some cool finds there as well. I myself got me a samurai helmet fo a meazly 2000 yen. ^^

this would come in quite handy to wear, whenever I watch those Hiro Nakamura and Takezo Kensei scenes from Heroes. ^^;

I have a dog named Chiko. but after reading about the story about the dog shrine in Shibuya, I wish I added a “Ha” on front of her name. ^^ I copied the story from wikipedia and pasted it on the bottom of this post, check out the Wiki entry if you would want to know more about it.

In 1924, Hachiko was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesamuroh Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner’s life, Hachik? saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. Even after Ueno’s death in May 1925, Hachik? returned every day to the station to wait for him, and did so for the next 10 years.

Hachiko’s devotion moved those around him, who nicknamed him “faithful dog”. Some kind vendors who saw the dog waiting every day would give him small bits of food and water. This has caused some people to say that he only returned to the station in order to receive these treats, but this does not answer why he would return only at the time his master’s train was due, and not remain begging after

Free hug, any takers? although judging from her look, she doesn’t seem to be too keen on hugging a bear sized bloke. ^^;

I’ve seen a lot of high tech toilets in my time, but the toilets in Japan would definitely take the cake and make the rest look like prehistoric crap holes.

The crapper here is from the Potala Palace in Tibet, if anybody wants to put a piece of crap on top of the world this would be the right place to be.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. My wife and I thought nothing could beat the washlet experience we had in our hotel room, however when you chance upon some of the public restroom, you might find out there were more to japanese toilets than you might imagine. My wife found one that had hidden speakers that would give out water gushing sounds once it detects someone is in the booth. this prevents other people in the bathroom from hearing the water that gushes out from your person. ^^ I found one that had a water spout on top of the tank, so that a person could wash their hands right after flushing the toilet at the same time the dirty water is used to fill up the tank. ^^

but by far the most unique one we saw was at a stop going to mount Fuji.

this one tells you which booth is vacant, which are currently occupied, western style, japanese style, and which has a baby diaper changing booth. ^^ wish all bathroom had something like this. ^^