scrub a dub

If I could choose 1 word to describe the Japanese, I'd have to say...clean. The streets are clean, the stores are clean, the bathrooms are clean, even the people are neat and tidy, except for the wild and crazy outfit choices. It's common practice to remove your shoes before entering a house, certain restaurants, temples, etc. so as not to "pollute" clean interiors with outside dirt. There are even rules about pre-washing before entering an Onsen (communal bath). Heck, there are even bidets on some public toilets; However, I'm too scared to try them for fear of possible splash back contamination from a previous participant. Where is all this going? Washcloths...or lack there of. What do these clean people use to wash with? You would think we would have learned after our last trip to a Japanese hotel and instead of washcloths they had strange "magic eraser" type body sponges. In case you were wondering, they didn't erase all the unsightly marks like the real ones. So in Kyoto, we were once again washcloth-less...even magic eraser-less. They provided us with hand towels and full size towels. I quickly found washing the kids with the hand towels to be a bit cumbersome, awkward and down right strange. So the goal for day 2 of vacation was to hunt for washcloths. Luckily, they're everywhere. Unluckily, they're more expensive than one would think (@$21 for 4), but they sure make great souvenirs...and are super light to bring back in the suitcase! Of course, we stumbled upon the 100yen store after we bought these. Oh well.


I will admit, the Hello Kitty in the Kimono is pretty cool. Mary's is on the left and mine is one the right. Didn't get a shot of the boys'.