In our foreign travels, we've experienced some unfamiliar bathroom features. Several years ago, your travel4seniors.com editor toured the castle of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg, Russia. Everything about the royal residence was magnificent. However, when visiting the rest room, we found it featured squat toilets. Instead of the expected US-styled seats and urinals, there were holes in the floor.

In some areas of Japan, there’s the usual plumbing and ceramic bowls, but they’re level with the floors. It takes balance and strength to get through the ordeal successfully. Also, some of the most modern toilets there have an array of buttons for controlling seats, flushing and shocking to those who push the wrong button and get a sudden spurt of upward cold water.

In Taiwan, used toilet paper is recycled. You must follow the rules by not flushing, but you push a control button to send the used paper on its way to be cleaned for another service to mankind.