Peeing in Australia

So an odd thing I’ve experienced while travelling here in Australia is the urinal situation. For the most part, there are not individual urinals, but rather long stainless-steel troughs up to which one saunters and then pees. The largest of these wrapped around 3 of 4 walls of the bathroom. Some of these troughs feature grates that hover over the basin. I’m not totally sure whether one is supposed to stay on the tiles and pee into the grates (which would possibly reduce splash), or stand on them, and pee against the wall (which would also reduce splash). Unfortunately, I’ve seen users do both, so it was no help. And, as implied, these large metal troughs really seem to cause splash. I find myself standing as far away as I can from anyone else, as splash seems to be lateral mostly.

Also curious is that in the few places I’ve been that had individual urinals, these too have all been stainless steel, rather than the porcelain I’m used to in North America.

The finaly difference, and this is a good one, is that the flush systems here generally have 2 options: 1/2-flush and full-flush, so if you’ve just gone pee, you don’t need as much water. Also popular are toilets where you simply hold the button for as long as you think you need to clear the bowl. Which means less wasted water, which is all good

And I’m sure you all wanted to know about my peeing experiences, eh?

2 Replies to “Peeing in Australia”

  1. So regarding IE users not being able to highlight text on your site, I’m pretty sure it has to do with your content area’s position style property set to absolute.

    I don’t know if it’d screw your site up, but if you had it positioned relative, it would let your IE peeps select stuff. I did my first pure div/css layout this weekend and encountered that, but fixed it:

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    dave g

  2. So regarding IE users not being able to highlight text on your site, I’m pretty sure it has to do with your content area’s position style property set to absolute.

    I don’t know if it’d screw your site up, but if you had it positioned relative, it would let your IE peeps select stuff. I did my first pure div/css layout this weekend and encountered that, but fixed it:

    http://www.cakebucket.com/blah/

    How’s that for somewhat random?

    dave g

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