Yamaji Restaurant, Gunma, Japan

Yamaji is a cozy restaurant in the mountains in Gunma. It is a wooden house with wooden tables and chairs. Drawings by their grand children on the walls. The toilet has a great view of the forest and I like the handmade toilet roll cover.

Abracadabra, London

 - Unique, but messy.

At the weekend I went to the toilet on a fabergé egg.
There's a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Glitter everywhere.

Which would you choose?

The toilets at the Abracadabra restaurant in London are definitely the most bizarre I've ever come across. There was a different surprise lurking behind every door - both in the ladies and the gents - the highlight definitely being the aforementioned egg.

There are some additional bizarre touches in the toilets, beside the fact that you get to do your business straight into a giant open mouth. On the backs of the doors are miniature screens which give a view of the bar - a bit disconcerting as it makes you wonder if there is a screen at the bar showing the inside of the toilets. 

Unfortunately a couple of cubicles were out of order when we were there, but I heard a rumour that there is a mushroom shaped toilet lurking somewhere.

Highly recommended.

I liked the brass heart shaped sinks a lot.

The gents toilets look far less appealing to me! What were they thinking?!
A bit messy too.

Hove town hall

These toilets have a very dated 80s feel (much like the rest of Hove town hall) but they deserve a mention as they are very large and divided into 3 distinct areas:

• The toilet cubicles (of which there are many).
• The sinks.
• And a huge dressing area (shown below).

Perfect for powdering one's nose.

Another interesting feature is that there are two different doors: one for entering and one for leaving.

As you can see when I was in there it was very empty, but by the size of the place, and the fact that they need traffic control, I think they must get very busy at times!

Chigasaki Lusca

This is the toilet is great! It is on the top floor of a department store in Chigasaki, Japan. Chigasaki is a city by the sea.

Fist you go through the semi-transparent glass walls. As shown in the first picture. I like the sign for the Ladies', wearing a necklace. The sign for Men's had a surfboard. In the toilet, you can hear sound effect of waves. One cubicle is a special aroma therapy toilet. I didn't get to use it this time as I was quite desperate and it was in use. But the nice aroma can be smelt throughout the toilet. Inside the cubicle is a standard toilet. To be honest I can't remember very well as I was most overwhelmed by the features encountered on the way. There is a toilet for children too!

The Sussex Produce Company, Steyning

I visited the Sussex Produce cafe a month or so ago and was so impressed with the toilets that I borrowed my Dad's phone to take some pictures. Not the greatest photos but you can see what I like - I have a weakness for wicker, and fresh flowers.

Very clean, a nice lamp for lighting, hand towels in a hanging basket, lovely shelves and a big tin bin. It ticked all the boxes.

I also like the big red tractor in the store.

 

L'Oranger, St James, London

I didn't care much for the decor in this place, but I was drinking a bottomless flute of Perrier-Jouët for free, so one mustn't complain. There's a funny article here about a naughty man who didn't pay when he came here, silly man.

WOW the toilets were posh. Molten Brown handwash and moisturiser on each sink (£15 a bottle!) and wicker baskets with individually rolled flannels to dry your hands. I have never seen this in a toilet before, apparently it is common in posher places.....they must do a lot of washing! But I guess it saves having a noisy hand drier or messy paper towels.

Well stocked toilet paper, a lovely aroma of flowers from the HUGE bunch of flowers at the sinks and lots of mirror space for reapplying make-up after a few too many top-ups of champagne.

Very nice, but probably not worth the money you'd pay to eat/drink here.

Wahaca, Soho, London

I feel nervous about giving any toilet a full 5 out of 5 stars, what makes the "perfect" toilet? Surely it's a little bit subjective? Anyway, Wahaca sure is a good-un.

The toilets are unisex, which might put some people off, but I think works well in this instance. Everything was spotlessly clean, even at 10pm after a clearly busy night. The toilets themselves are very spacious, and feel very private, with a large mirror in each one. The hand washing area is very modern and slick, with motion sensor soap & water (the toilet flush is also motion activated) and high powered hand driers which dry your hands super quick. The water from the sink flows to a water feature outside the glass doors of the toilet and the whole design of the space seems to have been considered as much as the restaurant itself.

I had a lovely time here.

Home, Japan

Some of my friends often ask me about the toilets in Japan so here are a couple of photos. It is an electric toilet. So I hope no blackouts. What I think is great about this toilet is how the water runs when it flushes. In most toilets, the flush passage is simply from top to bottom. But on this toilet the hole where the water runs from is on its side. Allowing the water to flow in a circular motion, cleaning the toilet well. There is a panel with many buttons on the wall to work the toilet but I've only used it once.

Beijin

The number of public toilets in Beijin is just impressive and very well maintained. They are of course squatting toilets. Nowadays I prefer it to the sitting ones. At least I don't have to worry about sitting on someone's pee. No doors but you get used to it. I did feel uncomfortable when someone was standing right in front of me waiting. Another time I went to use the reliable public toilet and instead of an actual toilet it was just a stream of water. Without really thinking about it I went into the one upstream so I couldn't do what I went into do and left.

Mongolia

Monglian toilets are often just a hole in the floor. No toilet rolls. Sometimes no doors. Taps with no running water. But Mongolia has so much land and so few people. Unless you are in the city, the toilet is all around you.

Welcome Break - Birchanger Services M11 (Stansted)

Bog standard (excuse the pun) motorway service station toilets. They were however clean and didn't smell too much. They also had vases of flowers on the sinks! A nice touch I thought!

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

I had an hour to kill at Berlin Hauptbahnhof last month so thought I would check out the facilities. Unfortunately the cost of using these toilets is 1 whole euro and as I only had 2 euros left in my pocket (for a cup of tea in Brussels) I had to opt out.

The same went for Köln Hauptbahnhof too! It makes the 30p cost of using train station toilets in England look like a bargain.

On the plus side, the facilities onboard Deutsche Bahn trains are quite adequate (and free).

The Blind Busker, Hove

The Blind Busker’s basement toilet offers an interesting sensory experience. Unusually warm, noisy and lit by a sickly orange glow, it feels a bit like you’ve walked into the gents on a Naval frigate, such is the encroaching engine-hum of what I assume is some sort of industrial-strength heating system (which would explain the warmth).

Mind you, if people in charge of warships were as bad at aiming as this pub’s punters are, we’d be at war with Denmark. Aside from the haphazard distribution of wee, the toilets are functionally fine, notable only for a rather impressive sink mirror.

But décor is this bathroom’s party piece – or rather was. Where once the room’s large chalkboards distracted the bored urinator with incongruous, not-very-interesting quotes from the likes of Tom Waits and Norm from Cheers, now a fat, bespectacled blue bird presents news of ‘street of the week’, a nifty promotion that offers food and drink discounts to residents of a nominated road. But, alas, there is no street of the week. Instead, our birdy friend chirrups into the void – a blank speech bubble has rarely said so much.

Potty Dance on The Argus. Page three!

Wow look, Potty Dance featured on The Argus. Thank you for all the posts. Let me know if you would like to become a toilet critic too.

Rose Cottage Inn Alciston

These toilets were one of the cleanest I've ever used. New and clean fittings. Handrails, and toilet holder that holds two rolls. Nice display of rocks by the sink. There was a bottle of soap and hand moisturizer. The only thing is that it is right next to the kitchen so it can be a little noisy.

The Lord Derby, Odiham, Hampshire

On first glance these are just your average pub toilets - quite small, but clean and well-equipped. However, while I was washing my hands I noticed a box of treats which had been placed next to the sink for the use of the toilet-goer.

Contents of the box included: Moisturiser, tampons & other sanitary products, hairspray, and some deodorant/body spray.
I didn't make use of any of these items, but I liked the touch. Very friendly.

Note: I later sent my Dad to the gents to see if there were any free giveaways in there. Unfortunately, the answer was no, but he did say there were some paintings of dancing girls on the walls.

Dover Port Ferry Terminal

When you enter the terminal e.g. to buy a ticket a good toilet can be found right around behind the main entrance on the right side. The toilet is clean, considering it is completely public and at a kind of crowded place. It had a slight peachy scent. Not my taste but I definitely could imagine a worse scent. I ve been testing the urinals only. I liked the fact that the sinks were automatic. Just move your hand to start the magical flow of water. Nice. Mirrors and towels made this a complete area for refreshing after/before crossing the channel. I like the fact that people were shaving there. Gives the whole space an international travelers feel.

Four stars and a half for uncompromissed cleanness and an international feel... - Daniel

World Duty Free, Gatwick Airport

This was a good toilet hidden behind the shop. It was very clean and had a sweet strawberry scent. In the spacious cubicle there was a special shelf with extra toilet rolls although there was no hook for the bag. The highlight was the sink area. Decorated by bright sunflower art, many mirrors and the bespoke hand dryer hidden behind the mirror. Derek the architect says that this is not so easy to do. Hiding things behind mirrors so got to be bespoke. Wow.

Yumi enjoying the bespoke sinks.

I give this one an extra half star. I think the strawberry smell was very strong. Like sweets. Maybe too strong...

Everything else was on the ball though.

 - Debbie

Irish ferries, Irish Sea (somewhere between Dublin & Holyhead)

We were lucky enough to travel across the Irish Sea on Jonathan Swift last week (the ferry not the writer) and took the opportunity to sample the facilities at sea.

a. Jonathan Swift (ferry)

b. Jonathan Swift (Irish writer & satirist)

The toilets were well equipped and clean. The doors were very heavy which led to some embarrassment in front of other travellers as I struggled to escape the cubicle. I suspect that heavy doors may be a necessary feature aboard ferries though so I haven't based my score on this factor.

There were some very detailed instructions on how to wash your hands on the wall of the toilets, which we later found to be a common occurrence across Ireland (see exhibit c). One of the steps was to dry your hands with a paper towel and then use a fresh paper towel to turn off the tap. This seemed a bit paranoid to me and as there were no paper towels in the toilets I was unable to complete my hand-washing chore list. It doesn't appear to have done me any harm.

One last feature to mention were the air sickness bags next to the sink. Do people get airsick on ferries?

c. OCD?

The Colonnade, Brighton

Enriched as it is with a sense of thespian glory – it borders Brighton’s Theatre Royal and has surely slaked the thirst of many a cottonmouthed player – you might expect a sense of drama at The Colonnade.

On descending the narrow stairs to the loos, tension is immediately increased by what must be the Georgian building’s least-emphasised highlight – hairy walls. Shouldn’t this sort of thing be on the national news? Permeating the leaden chipboard, wisps of grey downy whisker tickle the hands of those headed underground. There doesn’t appear to be any explanation for this, but the fluff only encroaches from the right-hand side – which is where the theatre is. Coincidence? Unlikely. Are the wisps remnants of Charlotte’s web? Shylock’s rheum-spattered beard? Or a ghost of The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical itself? It’s intriguing, anyway, if probably not terribly hygienic.

After this wonderment, the toilets themselves are pleasingly straightforward. Exceptionally clean in scent and sight, and with soap provided trustingly from a bottle of Carex in place of a nailed-to-the-wall dispenser. The only potential pitfall is as a result of the space’s rather claustrophobic dimensions – gentlemen approaching the sink would be advised to keep an eye on the cubicle door on the right. If it is opened suddenly then expect to be mercilessly smashed into the wall, hand dryer, or man standing awkwardly sideways-on trying to dry his hands. Fortunately, The Colonnade’s clientele are too refined for such clumsiness.

The Honey Club, Brighton

This must be one of the worst toilets I've visited. First of all, it stunk badly. Unusual for girls toilet. The floor was wet the toilet was wet. It was one of those metal toilets which I find cold and unpleasant. What was even worse was that there were no seats on the toilet which meant that I had to squat in an awkward position. All this and it was only the beginning of the night. The only positive was that there were toilet rolls.

Steki, Brighton

The toilets at Steki, a Greek restaurant were clean but very basic. No decoration or special features.  White doors white tiles, white walls, nothing to entertain my visit. The sink is in the cubicle but the hand dryer is outside.

Malta International Airport - Arrivals Airside

Clean toilets with strong smell of cleaning fluid. Perhaps they were trying to impress first time visitors to Malta? I imagine this toilet has seen a lot of abandoned drugs over the years.