Japanese house with $500,000 toilet

Des'ree has left and I now have a new flatmate, Erica. She is 25, American, and into snowboarding. So far we've got off to a great start. She arrived on Thursday and left for Sapporo this morning for training. She'll be back to start work on Saturday.

Last Monday, I got a call inviting me over to a house party. The call was from Ren and Ayumi (of Shyusens) with Aaron (Canadian teacher) in tow. The house belonged to one of the regulars at Shyusens and they were on their way over when they called. I went round with Mike about an hour later. The house was lovely. Everyone was sat round low Japanese style tables. They had takoyaki and fondue out. Tako is octopus and takoyaki is balls of batter mixture with a piece of octopus in the middle. The takoyaki maker has a tray with spherical indentations. The batter mixture is poured into the tray, then a piece of octopus into each little hole. When the batter starts to solidify, it is formed into balls by turning with a pick. The batter is really nice but not so keen on the octopus...really chewy. They also had fondue, and plenty of beer, wine and sake. The daughter of the family, studied in America and has great English. The family have a holiday home by Kushiro lake and they showed a video of them all waterskiing and relaxing in the hot tub. The night we were there was the one year anniversary of their house being built. The toilet alone is worth $500,000. When you enter the room a sensor opens the lid and turns a light on in the bowl, then flushes itself and closes the lid, and turns off the light when you leave.