I remember every time I’ve ever thrown up in my adult life. The most recent was after dinner with Dick at the local yakitori joint. We downed four bottles of sake, mixing in lamb chops, sausages and chicken parts on skewers. Apparently, I spent the night hugging the toilet. Not fun for a school night.
Since then, I’ve been scoping out toilets around town like they were emergency exits on flights and ranking them in order of the ones I'd most like to hug. This is what I found.
The iconic bathroom award has to go to Felix on top of the Peninsula hotel, where you can relieve yourself overlooking the city’s skyline. Meanwhile, Volar has taken the pee-all-over-it concept one step further by installing a one-way mirror dividing the men's room from the hall. Men can stare into the hall of milling people while they pee. Classy.
At South Beauty, everything is automated - the entrance, the lid, the bowl, the sink, the soap, and the dryer. Perfect for germophobes like me. Well, except I couldn’t get the auto-flush to work and had to ask for help. And asking for bathroom assistance when you're aged between 2 and 80 is a humbling thing.
Now, I never put my ass on a public seat, not even with 15 layers of tissue between skin and bowl. But whenever I see a Japanese toilet, I’m always in a conundrum. They have one at the Executive Bar, and unbeknownst to the owner, it's the main reason why I come (but the bar is beautiful too, as is their scotch list). The toilet’s auto-warmed seating is so welcoming, and all the features are far more entertaining than toilets should be (massage, water jets, lid with proximity sensor, ozone deodorant system - oh, and guys, when using the "bidet" facility, make sure you select the water jets positioned for men or you may get a painful surprise). Some models have a “relax music” button playing the first few bars of Op. 62 Nr. 6 Frühlingslied, which the Japanese have deemed the perfect score for doing your business. Others have the “Sound Princess” button for those with paruresis (sometimes called "pee shyness"). It plays birds chirping or loud toilets flushing to put you at ease.
There are so many notable places of sanctuary I don't have room to mention here, like The Press Room with it’s 1950s spoof on Toile de Jouy wallpaper, the palace that is the handicapped bathroom at Nobu, the unisink at Solas, or the 100-year-old hole in the ground at Ned Kelly’s Last Stand. It’s nice to know that bathrooms are no longer about economy-grade soaps and wheelchair accessibility; instead, they've become the one room where restaurants and clubs can be playful.
