Hello, I blog!

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).

Was scrolling through Facebook the other day and learned that my favourite cafe just down the road will be shutting down.

Damn, another one bites the dust.

I have had fond memories at that cafe. I brought nearly all my friends there because their coffee is amazing. And there was this cozy, neighbourhood-ly vibe which I haven’t really experienced elsewhere.

The cafe owner himself – also the chief barista – was so incredibly passionate about his coffee he could advise on every single thing – from beans, grind settings, and other coffee paraphernalia. I can still remember him telling me that you don’t need expensive gadgets to make good coffee, ie. he uses a $2 filter from Daiso to make his own filter coffee at home and it is nowhere less legit than a V60 set-up.

It’s hard to survive primarily as a coffee place in Singapore, and I could see multiple experimentation going on over the years. Pastries from his friend’s sister – who happens to be an amazing baker – made an appearance. (Gula melaka ondeh-ondeh cake, mmmm!) There was a daily special cake that changes every day, jokingly coined the “under-table cake” because it was usually hidden from view and you had to ask what it was. Simple brunch food such as pancakes made an appearance. A gelato ice box appeared a couple of years back, but disappeared soon after.

Maybe he did too good a job, because I got swayed into making my own coffee at home more that I started patronizing his cafe less and less. In fact, the last time I stepped in there was a good 8 months ago. And it was to buy coffee beans.

And even then, he was still so incredibly helpful, grinding the beans for me in his cafe and even recommending grind sizes (more fine) based on the device I was using (aeropress) and my general coffee preference (using the aeropress to make espresso shots for lattés, and I like my lattés strong).

Sigh.

BLACK&INK, you will be terribly missed.