Hi Josh

For us the most time consuming before arriving – and leaving – was dealing with the one airline.

Although the service was fabulous just trying to get the power wheelchair gate checked and returned to the plane upon arrival took me months of time to get approvals.

When we left on the same airline through Osaka and Haneda the staff took 1+ hours at EACH airport to check on both loading the chair onto the plane as well as gate checking. This was obviously something new to the staff and I appreciate their thoroughness but honestly why we had to repeat this both on incoming and outgoing flights was beyond my comprehension.

Is this normal?

The hotels. Planning the wheelchair accessibility was time consuming and on the arrival some of the hotels didn’t meet the descriptions. In one it was impossible to enter the bathroom (it was only one night so I used an exterior one) and in another it was impossible to enter the room so we had to change it! People always very nice and helpful but some stress involved..

My biggest challenge has been the red tape surrounding bringing in my opiod pain meds and other medications that i take. Filling in the online forms has been tricky, not very clear, and having to get permission letters from my own GP has cost me £40. My paperwork is in, i think (still not too sure if I’ve done it right), awaiting a reply, which I will chase up today. It’s not very straight forward!

The bit that is always challenging (not just in Japan) is choosing suitable hotel rooms. So few of them have good and reliable photos!