Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
Japan’s wheelchair accessibility is a complete joke.
What makes the joke even greater is that they are hosting the Paralympics in 2020. /slowclaps
I have been quiet on this blog, but offline – well let’s just say that my life has been quite a mess this year. Since losing my voice from the beginning of the year, I started learning to dance (always wanted to do so since I was a kid). It started well but didn’t quite end well. I ended up with a severe knee injury that has left me with crutches since July, and then a wheelchair since September. Yep, /slowclap for me as well.
I ended up experiencing 2 different disabilities in a year. More on that in a separate post because I learnt too much.
Unfortunately (or is it fortunately? I can’t quite decide – because I was depressed and a trip would help my mental state), we also had a trip to Tokyo planned in late October for 2 weeks and I hadn’t recovered in time.
It was a mental struggle for me whether or not to take on this trip because;
1. I would just be a burden to all the others in our travel group of 5.
2. Taking on a trip in a wheelchair sounded very daunting to me.
There was plenty to plan.
Like accommodation. One of our hotels in Nikko turned out to be staircase-only (no lift) and we had to rebook. But most hotels were already fully booked (the remaining were ryokans that are not wheelchair accessible and I can’t use futons because of my injury). So we ended up in far-flung Kinugawa.
Our decision to drive in Nikko was also largely motivated by my injury, because not all buses there were wheelchair accessible.
Another hotel in Tokyo had a loft-style bed that was not injury friendly so that prompted another rebooking.
Thankfully, there were sites such as Accessible Japan that reassured me that Japan is wheelchair friendly. (Although this turned out to be false reassurance.)
Now, this blog post is going to supplement whatever material there is out there about wheelchair accessible Japan, and I am going to state this TL;DR upfront.
TL;DR
Unless you have an electric wheelchair, you are not going to experience barrier-free access in Japan. Also, travelling to Japan is not advisable if you have a leg injury of any sort.
I am on a manual wheelchair that is human-powered – or in the case of the Japan trip, boyfriend-powered (seriously, he was pushing my wheelchair 24/7 for 14 days while navigating the intricate maze called “wheelchair-accessible” Japan and until now I still can’t figure out how he did it).
You can have the best credit card, but if your customer service is shit…
Citibank, you guys are a fucking piece of work.
Okay, that was abrupt.
Let me start from the beginning. I signed up for the Citibank Premier Miles card in January this year because it was (supposedly) the best card for travel benefits.
I am vocally impaired so I couldn’t talk on the phone (vocal chord damage since October last year). My registration was delayed for a week because the Customer Support (CS) who handled my registration couldn’t get in touch with me, and didn’t know what to do next when I divulged that I was vocally impaired and couldn’t go on the phone.
I sent two emails days apart to reiterate this but the CS never responded.
Eventually, I send an email telling the CS to call my mum’s number. My mum’s phone rang almost immediately. (I had a ?! moment at this time – if I wasn’t proactive and didn’t anticipate their needs, my application would have been in limbo forever.)
But still, the CS needed me on the line to do some identity validation.
Fair enough, maybe all other banks are like that too. Voice biometric maybe, but I practically have no voice for them to capture.
Mum came to the rescue and spoke to the CS on my behalf. The credit card registration subsequently went smoothly and I finally had my credit card for travel perks, whee.
I originally set a low credit limit of $4000 in my application. I was bitten by credit card fraud before and wanted to play it safe especially with a new bank (I am mostly on DBS, and this is my first ever experience with Citibank), so I set it low. And if all’s good, I would increase it if necessary.
I thought a $4000 credit limit would serve me just fine.
Until I decided to shift to this Citibank card as my primary card for daily expenses and my medical bills. On top of that, the boy and I were starting to consolidate our expenditure on this card because of the miles. Thankfully, all these combined expenses stayed well below the limit.
Then came April when I travelled to Osaka on a long trip.
Payments to the hotel (via Agoda), combined with a medical bill bomb led to my credit limit getting maxed out. Two hotel payments went through, but payment to the last hotel failed. I quickly topped up my card by transferring additional funds to it, but it was in vain – the funds took 3 days before it was registered by Citibank. Eventually, the booking for the final stretch of my trip got cancelled, and we were nearly left stranded. (I said “nearly” because we managed to secure another hotel at the eleventh hour using another credit card.)
That was it.
I had to increase my credit limit.
Quotes of the day
(Backdated post: Written on 23/03/2018. Only because offline people are reading this and I don’t want any questions.)
“Cancer does not respect age, gender nor religion. It strikes whenever, wherever it wants.” – Doctor.
“Nowadays, things are happening to everyone. If cancer comes, we just have to accept it lor. That is life.” – My aunt.
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