I made the mistake of tying my shoelace by putting my foot on a public bench. This was at a little weekend english teaching gig with a school north of Tokyo. The fellow who worked in the park definitely let me have it in a stream of politely annoyed Japanese. The funny thing, it was not uncommon to have people hacking up and spitting on the sidewalk right beside you or urinating against the wall outside some drinking establishment and no one seemed bothered by it.
The line of customers behind me reminds me of the time I went on some bus tour outside of Tokyo and after several hours the trip was changed to a nearby park since the highway was pretty much a parking lot. We stopped for a long needed restroom break and the public washroom was a large hall with a wall of urinals for men on one side and closed toilets for women on the other.
Needless to say, when you have 50 people lining up behind you and you really need to go but somehow you get stage fright because you are in just one big open bathroom, it doesn’t make for a memorable trip.
