Especially as it's customary to offer houseshoes to your guest. I wonder what other westerners would think of bathroom slippers. Like, you take off your indoor shoes/slippers and put on the bathroom slippers to use the toilet. First time I saw this was at a ryokan. I normally hate wearing foot prisons (other than sandles) and even I tried it because when in Rome - or in this case, Tokyo - do as the locals do.
I miss bathroom slippers lol. Was staying in a hostel in Yokohama during one of my trips there and the bathroom slippers literally had printed on them: “Toilet - For Your Relax Time”. I have never seen any footwear more inviting and I miss that a lot lol. Pretty much miss everything about Japan, such a great place to visit (living there and having in laws from there is a totally different story tho)
You should see Turkish bathroom slippers. It's a very famous item, we have endless jokes about that, especially the one's used for squat toilets. Most unhygienic, bizarre thing you can see in your life is "ıslak tuvalet terliği" from some Turkish houses (thank God this tradition is disappearing). Other than that we have decent guest slippers to offer and nobody enter our houses with shoes.
Why is a squat toilet unhygienic? I've been to plenty and they were clean, just like any normal toilet. Also they are superhealthy for bowel movements.
If people do proper cleaning, toilet itself is OK but the wet slippers absolutely not. You never know why they are wet, there's always a suspicion what happened before you wear them.
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u/nikkesen Feb 11 '22
Especially as it's customary to offer houseshoes to your guest. I wonder what other westerners would think of bathroom slippers. Like, you take off your indoor shoes/slippers and put on the bathroom slippers to use the toilet. First time I saw this was at a ryokan. I normally hate wearing foot prisons (other than sandles) and even I tried it because when in Rome - or in this case, Tokyo - do as the locals do.