Remote Control Japan

I think that Japan must be operated via remote control – I’m not kidding! On my coffee table there are no less than five remotes and most of the buttons are in Kanji! The living room is not the only place that there are remotes – each bedroom has two remotes. Some you would expect and some just seem a little over the top to me. Here’s a photo of remotes on my coffee table:

It’s not that crazy until you get to the remote for the room lights (looks like this one is for those that are too lazy get up to adjust the room lighting. And we thought the US was technologically advanced with the clapper – do you remember those commercials? Clap on! Clap off!

So far I have figured out the on/off buttons and the volume and channel changing buttons for the TV but most of the other buttons are out of my league. I can turn on the heater and adjust the temperature but can’t do much else even though there are easily 10 buttons on the damn remote!

Then there is the entry phone which, along with all of the other various remotes, will be mastered via the trial and error method. The only instructions we got for the entry phone was not to hit the big button with the red Kanji unless you want the police summoned – thank God they told me that because I have a terrible habit of pushing buttons to figure out what they do and that would be very difficult to explain to the police! I wonder how long it will take me to let someone in should we have visitors?