McDonalds, Gollum and Toilets...is there any other combination?

I blacked out, but somehow managed to end up at the correct station and unfolded my crumpled, hand-drawn map, to check my next move. I still had ages to kill, but glanced again at the note my interviewer had wrote beside the dodgy map- "Arrive at Head Office at 3:30 sharp." I still had an hour to kill and alas I had escaped the time warp of getting lost in a new place. I glanced around at the deserted train station. What else could I do but wander (even if there did happen to be somewhere in the train station with Japanese soap operas playing-I think I'd rather pass)? The heat was still beating down and I could feel the warm trickles of sweat dripping down my back, pressed hard up against my bag. I wondered, if once I got to the offices, if they would immediately retract my job offer? I did look frightening to the general public, let alone to little Japanese children. As I was trekking along I glanced up an saw most prominent sign of my generation; The Golden Arches. I'm not really in any way a McDonald's fan, when I did come across this sign it was usually at late hours, after being out on the town with friends and after democratic vote to go there and me trudging along behind. This was one of the few times ever, I was happy to see a clown.

I walked into McDonald's and gave everyone a fright! Here in this random district in Nagoya a young, caucasian, blond woman walks in with baggage galore, makeup smeared and sweat drenched. This would not an uncommon sighting in the shady McDonald's I've experienced abroad, but in Japan where everything is spit shinned-I was unmistakably out of place. I dropped my bags in a corner, as to physically block the stares of the majority of customers. I walked up to the counter, with a polite, but frightened Japanese man asking (presumably) to take my order. I pointed at an ice cream (one of the few edible choices for a vegetarian at McDonald's) and said "Kore wa onegashimasu"-This one please. He smiled and paused waiting for me to order more but I started blankly at him, hoping he wouldn't let any more time pass, before I would have to decided whether to scramble to find my phrase book to look up the phrase, "That's it." In this case, I chose to pull the dumb blond card, and stared blankly at him, until he gave me my order. Success! I paid my bill and took my ice cream to my little, sheltered cave I had enclosed with my bags. I had a flash image of the resemblance between Gollum and myself. No wonder the Japanese people had anxious looks on there faces. My back aching, I hunched over in my cave, licking away at my ice cream and muttering softly how precious it was.

What just over 24 hours in Japan
can do to you.

After a painstakingly long ice cream session, (some foods are just not meant to be eaten slowly-ice cream being one of them) to maintain my customer status, I reflected again on my look-a-like, Gollum and about screaming Japanese children running in fear from me in the classroom, so thought best to try to freshen up and use the toilet. I'm not a praying woman, but in this case I said a prayer for Western toilets!

The odd thing is Japan has been stereotyped for having amazing toilets, which I give it some credit for, but then it is sprinkled with the same amount of third-world style toilets, which doesn't balance out. The costs of including a waterfall automated playing device, water that can be sprayed into any body part, or a voice over greeting, Telling you to have a good one (or 'Ganbatte'-Do your best in Japanese), on the sterilized warmed toilet seat; must be exorbitant!! In Japan, I could see toilets being on the checklist of major purchases in one's life: Car-check, House-check, University-check, Toilet-check. Instead, why not have some less extravagant, practical toilets and more of them other than these Japanese style toilets that  remind me of my stay in India! It is such a contrast. And may I add, a new skill for a woman to learn-the squat method. Finally, this is an understandable situation for a woman to be caught up in the toilet for some time. The awkwardness, especially in the winter time, with these outdoor Japanese style toilets, having to take off your pants, tights and undies, squat in such a way as to not pee all over yourself and then in the limited space, put everything back on without stepping in your own or someone else's piss! I've noted since being here that it isn't standard, as it is back home, for all your girlfriends to link arms and declare a bathroom break. I think the whole process is a mission, one I'd rather face by myself than trying to gossip while multitasking these new skills. Makes me curse even more those comfortable, warmed toilets!

Ridiculously nice Japanese style

Japanese 'Normal' style

VS

There were Western toilets after all, and I had a quick 'homeless style' freshen up-hoping no one would walk in on me. By chance, as I was finishing up with my third layer of deodorant, a woman came in. I grabbed my bags, feeling a little bit more respectable, and decided my time had come to enter "Head Office."