Thursday, April 08, 2010

So if you have a physical disability the place to stay in Tokyo is Toyama Sunrise Hotel. Which is fully accessible with lovely rooms, for 4,500yen which roughly converts to 45$. For the impoverished traveller with a disability this is a bit steep, but for full accessibility and comfort 45$ in Tokyo is very very reasonable. The elevators and rooms have vraille and large print, the rooms also have accessible bathrooms with AMAZING toilets. While in the past i have not been a fan of spending time in the bathroom, my god Japanese toilets will heat up, splash you in various places, blow you dry, sing a tune and shout at you in Japanese. Something that needs to be experienced by all.
I was extremely (positively) surprised at the level of accessibility in Japan, whilst the rigid rules and obsessive formality begs to be broken by someone like me , it also begets wonderful reliability, accuracy and accessibility. The metro, which is some kind of insane maze that weaves itself in and out of Tokyo, has conductors who will set up the ramp to get over the small lip and then that same conductor will call the station where you're getting off to be ready with ramp in hand. And believe me, they are there 100% of the time. They will even guide you through crazy stations as Shinjuku where during rush hour you would be lucky to make it anywhere with all the strait-edged japanese business men flow in masses. Also if you need a handicapped accessible toilet just go to one of the local metro stations, more often then not that is the best place to find a loo.

More to come soon, I'm in the middle of finishing my dissertation for uni, so I'm going a bit mad, but thanks so much for all of your comments on my last post, I will reply soon.