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* I apparently watch all the right anime to know what food to order, but all the wrong anime to know what living in Japan is like. (...it doesn't help that my taste in anime is not, generally, 'slice of life.')
* Train stations in Japan are absolutely not built for people in wheelchairs/using walkers/otherwise physically disabled. A few select stations have a setup that allows a wheelchair on without help, but only a few.To make up for this, train station staff are amazing and will in fact escort you three blocks, using a little portable ramp to get your wheelchair over big curbs, to help you make your transfer. (The one catch, of course, is that you must let them know you're there and using their station, even if there's no one not at the specific station entrance you used. Otherwise you may have to hit the emergency button on a train to allow your wife in a wheelchair to get off. Ask me how I know.)
* Taking a taxi in Kyoto, specifically, is an experience: the taxi driver would pick us up on a main street, then dive into a twisting maze of narrow little back streets, only to pop out again a block from our hotel. Frequently the back streets involved squeezing past pedestrians, bicyclists, and/or other cars going the opposite direction, even when there did not look like nearly enough space. Suddenly the trash talking from INITIAL D ("You could totally have passed me, you had six whole centimeters!") looks a lot less shonen-implausible.
* Mountain roads in Japan really are Like That.
* So are Shinjuku and Asakusa.
More details, commentary, and photos when I am not utterly jet-lagged!
* Train stations in Japan are absolutely not built for people in wheelchairs/using walkers/otherwise physically disabled. A few select stations have a setup that allows a wheelchair on without help, but only a few.To make up for this, train station staff are amazing and will in fact escort you three blocks, using a little portable ramp to get your wheelchair over big curbs, to help you make your transfer. (The one catch, of course, is that you must let them know you're there and using their station, even if there's no one not at the specific station entrance you used. Otherwise you may have to hit the emergency button on a train to allow your wife in a wheelchair to get off. Ask me how I know.)
* Taking a taxi in Kyoto, specifically, is an experience: the taxi driver would pick us up on a main street, then dive into a twisting maze of narrow little back streets, only to pop out again a block from our hotel. Frequently the back streets involved squeezing past pedestrians, bicyclists, and/or other cars going the opposite direction, even when there did not look like nearly enough space. Suddenly the trash talking from INITIAL D ("You could totally have passed me, you had six whole centimeters!") looks a lot less shonen-implausible.
* Mountain roads in Japan really are Like That.
* So are Shinjuku and Asakusa.
More details, commentary, and photos when I am not utterly jet-lagged!