Gizmos and dogs

It is interesting that you see dogs all over the place - in trains and in fancy restaurants - everywhere. People seem to integrate them into their lives more here. I know most people also live in apartments and need to find ways to get their pets out.

I've seen some interesting gizmos, too. At one grocery store there was a cigarette machine where all you had to do was press a button for your choice of brand and it came out on a little conveyor belt. Then you paid for it with the rest of your groceries. At the Laundromats I've been to, you load your clothes into the machine and then go put your money into a control panel and pres the number for your machine. It even deposits a cup of detergent into a cup for you to take back to the machine. The same control panel controls the dryers, too. At one of the places I stayed, they gave be a key to my room and a little flat thing that looked a lot like a watch battery. To get into the building, to operate the electric door, all you had to do was press the little gizmo onto a spot outside the door that looked like a doorbell that you couldn't push and it opened the door! One other fancy device was a baggage rack by the stairs at one of the train stations. Instead of having to carry your bags up and down the stairs, you put it on this conveyor belt and press the button and it carried it up or down for you. Some pretty cool gizmos! Where I stayed last night there was an electric shoe polisher, too. Just press the button and put your shoes under the whirring brush!