The Convenience of Japan

I was trying to switch off my stereo the other day and made about three attempts to get the right remote control to do so and then it hit me that I had a little too many remote controls. I think this is more a Japan thingy.. where things in life are made as easy and comfortable as possible. Most of my remote controls are pretty common actually.. you know, TV, DVD player, stereo, AC.. but among them, two stand out.. the one for the light and for my halogen heater.

It was a very nice surprise when I first found the fact that they have remote control for the room light. Of course.. why not.. it's nice to be reading on your bed and when the sleepiness hovers, just press the button on the controller right next to you. Or even better, you can set timer on it so that after 30 or 60 minutes it will switch off automatically (actually not so sure if it's better, coz sometimes I found myself suddenly reading in the dark). And as if that's not enough, you can also set the switch on and off time for every day use.
Anyway the room light itself already has a nice feature that is hard to find in other place in the world. It is common here that the light comes in 3 settings: strong fluorescent light, weak fluorescent light and the somber yellow light.

My room light and its remote control smoothly made it to the list of the things I wanna bring back to Australia if ever possible. Another point on the list of course is the heated and feature-full toilet seat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan
(This article is actually quite a nice read; it also mentioned and provided the picture of wooden toilet paper used in the old days *ewwww*)

Anyway, here is a snapshot of the remote controls I have.. (the room light controller is the second largest one)