[astrogrrl]

We have had a little trouble using the JR Pass when going from the airport to Shinjuku.  It turned out we had green tickets (supposedly the better type) however there was no actual wheelchair spot in that section.  I had to sit back in the luggage area which was a bit annoying. Luckily it was pretty quiet so I just sort of blocked the aisle to talk to my family.
From what I understand (based on the information our Japanese friend said who was trying to translate for us) there are different ticket types eg ‘Green’ & ‘Blue’ which indicate the carriage you go in.  Apparently there is a wheelchair spot in the ‘Blue section’.
They seem to get very stuck on rules here. eg because we had green tickets they made us travel in that carriage even though I am pretty sure there would have been a better spot for me in a different (cheaper) carriage.

It does seem to work differently than here in Australia where they  would have just moved us all to the more accessible spot regardless of if we had first class tickets – or at least would of offered it.

Things also seem to take ages to organize.  Thank goodness for our friend who speaks Japanese as even with her understanding the language it took over an hour and going back 3 times to try and book our wheelchair spots for the rest of the trip – and we still need to go back tomorrow to confirm everything and pick up the tickets.