So I had the unfortunate experience of breaking the 5th metatarsal on my right foot back in July. This happened when I was running in a trail over at Taman Tugu, and while it was my third time that week running in the same trail, the experience proved to be totally different. I rolled my ankle stepping on some large stones on the mainly dirt and gravel trail, and immediately heard a snap. Fortunately for me, this happened at the start of my run and it was a quick exit-stage-left before sitting down to examine the damage. By the time I drove back the pain was quite unbearable and after consulting with two different doctors in two different hospitals, I ended up in a boot with orders for “no weight bearing” at the end of the day.

This happened four weeks before a planned trip to Hong Kong where my daughter would be competing in the 11th Hong Kong International Music Festival’s piano competition in the 11-13 year old category. We went to see the specialist right before the trip and I was okay-ed to put some weight on the right foot, granted with the Aircast boot strapped on it. So how was the experience in Hong Kong, travelling with crutches, and with my daughter who uses a white cane? It was interesting and more pleasant than I thought it would be.

All On Board The Wheelchair

For starters, I flew with AirAsia and while I tried adding wheelchair service to my flight booking, both the mobile app and website were just showing error after error. I ended up booking the wheelchair service at KLIA’s Terminal 2 while checking-in my luggage at the AirAsia counter, and it was free-of-charge thanks to my daughter’s PWD card. Booking the service meant that there was a wheelchair attendant waiting for me at the gate when we landed at Hong Kong International Airport.

The attendant wheeled me through immigration where there was a special counter to process passengers with special needs, and then through luggage collection right up to the taxi stand. He was very quick on his feet, even my wife and daughter had trouble keeping up with him.

Tactile Tiles…. Everywhere

Hong Kong has the reputation for being one of the most accessible, if not the most accessible city in East Asia. There are plenty of tactile tiles not only on the side walks, but also in shopping malls and the MTR (Mass Transit Railway). The MTR website is pretty useful in listing down the accessible facilities in each MTR station such as the location of escalators and elevators to/from street-level. The people themselves often gave up their seats in the MTR when they spot crutches or a white cane.

My daughter had fun exploring parts of this Special Administrative Region, and certain locations even have tactile braille notice boards, such as the Hong Kong Museum of Art and some of the newer shopping malls such as the K11 Musea. Wheelchair rental while usually not advertised, is available at certain malls. The hotel that we were staying in was attached to one such mall which collected a returnable deposit for the entire day’s use of the wheelchair. This came with the limitation of only using that wheelchair within the mall’s premises.

The Competition

How did my daughter do in her piano competition? Well she ended up in third place which was a very good result, considering she was up against able-bodied competitors quite a number of Mainland Chinese pianists who were very good in their own right. She has her music teacher and her masterclass teacher to thank for all the prep work prior to the competition.

Here’s a pro-tip, thanks to companies such as Piano Easy, there are plenty of small piano studios that can rented for 30-minute slots throughout Hong Kong. We managed to book one with studio which was basically a room in a co-working space that contained a Yamaha grand piano. The co-working space was in turn located in an industrial building which had a lot of workshops on the ground floor. Rental must be pretty cheap there.

The Return Flight

Booking the wheelchair service for the return flight was easier than the first time around. While there was a dearth of personnel at HKIA, the wheelchair handler was only available at the gate, at least we got to board the flight first. A wheelchair attendant was waiting for us at the gate when we arrived at KLIA Terminal 2, and similar to his Hong Kong counterpart, he wheeled me all the way through immigration, luggage collection and right up to the lift heading towards the car park.