Railway stations, one of the single most important facilities in the country for transport, are very poorly equipped to handle any disabled people; only the very big ones have lifts, the moderately large ones have escalators, and most normal ones, let alone the small ones simply have stairs.
Public toilets big enough to fit a wheelchair through the door are found only in the largest of department stores.
Restaurants, coffee shops, you name it anywhere you go in to eat, its either upstairs, downstairs, or has three or four steps in front of it. Even McDonalds has steps in front of it. Nowhere in the entire country is life easy for any disabled people... or is it?
Milk cartons have a little notch cut into the top on the flappy thing where the use-by date is printed. Why? So blind people can tell which end says "to open" and which end says "open other end". This was told in the greatest seriousness by one of the students today, and I believe him. Partly because I have no reason whatsoever to disagree, and also because it strikes me as a perfect example of the illogicity of this place. As if it makes the slightest difference which end you open the milk carton from! Granny opened every single milk carton she ever used from the "open other end" side and it made not the slightest difference to the milk. Great effort is put into ensuring that everyone can open the milk cartons from the correct side (to do otherwise would of course be breaking the 'wa'), but no one seems to care that if your legs dont work then you basically cannot carry out any kind of normal life.
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