France

In defense of the bidet, you might not be getting quite as clean as you would be with soap, but you’re definitely getting cleaner than with paper alone. I put it this way to folks who look at me weird when I mention that I use bidets… if you got a glob of shit on your hands, would simply wiping it off with a piece of paper be good enough? Water would be involved somehow…

Also if you’re soaking yourself to the point where drying is an issue, you might want to try adjusting the water pressure or flow in some way…. I use a bidet daily and don’t need more than 4-6 squares of TP to get adequately dry.

I would like to start a series of random posts about life in Tokyo from a Parisian perspective. I'll try to show the good, the bad and the in-between. I make no promises in terms of frequency or objectivity.

I've seen toilets with sinks a few times in France as well, it's available for people to buy.

Coincidentally enough, the first time I encountered thus kind of toilet was in a Hausmann flat in the Latin Quarter of Paris in late winter 2022! That made me kind of assume that these were ubiquitous to Paris because I didn't encounter them in Germany or Belgium or Eastern France.

Now I know that was a conscious choice that the flat owner made!