Why You Absolutely Must Visit Japan:

Japan is often described as being far ahead of the rest of the world, and it’s easy to go online and see why:

Here are just a few of those reasons:

Transportation: Japan is famous for its ultra-fast bullet trains and immaculate metro systems. And, Japanese trains are almost never late.

Convenience: Japan has over 5.5 million vending machines, a staggering number second to none in the world, offering drinks, sushi, excellent meals, clothes, weird toys, books, comics, and much more.

Braille on Beer Cans: If you buy a can of beer in Japan, you may encounter small raised bumps on the top. It’s Braille letters for “alcohol,” to help blind people distinguish a beer from a can of soda.

Manners: Politeness is a cultural prerequisite in Japan – nothing goes without polite greetings, bows, or expressions. Even if someone doesn’t agree with you or doesn’t particularly like foreigners, he will treat you in a polite way.

The Unko Museum: Located in Asobuild (image above) in Yokohama, about 25 miles south of Tokyo, this pop-up museum is dedicated to the proposition that everyone should have an equal opportunity to touch, feel, hear, play with, and take home poop.

That’s right.

Japan is leading the way – again!

Welcome to the Unko Museum – “unko” being the Japanese word for “shit” – where the shit is fake and the opportunities for social media posts are endless.

And where actual travel magazines encourage you to visit, like this:

And where websites describe the museum with language like this:

“…provides a new experience through one of the things, regardless of sex, nationality or age, that thoroughly unifies humanity.”

Poop. I’d never thought of it as the great humanity unifier.

According to english.kyodonews.net, the Unko Museum “aims to redefine how poop is viewed in popular culture,” and promises poop “the likes of which would surely require an extra setting on the Bristol stool scale.”

The Bristol stool scale, in case you’re wondering, is “a diagnostic medical tool designed to classify the form of human feces into seven categories.”

And if you want to know more about that, you’re on your own.

Moving right along…

For a mere $16/adults $9/children, here are some of the activities you can take pictures of yourself doing at the Unko Museum:

Giving us your best constipation face, sitting on one of seven colorful, non-functional toilets lined up against the wall…
…Then collecting the brightly colored souvenir poop to put on a stick and take home.
Marveling at a ceiling-high feces sculpture in the main hall that erupts every 30 minutes, spitting out little foam poops.
Learning from a neon sign with the word “poop” written in different languages.
Kicking a turd into a goal via a soccer video game.
Riding a slide down in a giant toilet to…um…I’m not sure where.
Drawing your own unko interpretation inside a mini toilet seat frame.
Buying poop-themed souvenirs at the museum’s gift shop.