An American Abroad: Tom's Trip To Japan

One of the goals of The Ohio Register (TOR) is to provide our readers with a broad array of content which goes beyond covering important local and state-wide matters. So periodically, we will provide stories based on the personal experience of TOR contributors including covering vacations, hobbies, and other aspects of their lives we believe will be of interest to TOR readers.
At the end of 2024, Tom Hach, a TOR contributor, spent over two weeks traveling throughout the fascinating country of Japan. This series of articles will give you insight into his experience in Japan, one of America's most important American allies in east Asia.
Japan: December 15, 2024 to January 1, 2025
I have always been intrigued by Japan from a young age, mostly because my father spent a couple of years there when he served in the Marine Corps in the late 1950's, and he would often talk about his experiences and the our home was awash in souvenirs he brought back from the Land of the Rising Sun. So when I learned my son, who serves in the Navy, was going to be stationed in Japan for several years, I knew I had to visit him and explore this extraordinary country. Working around my son's deployment schedule, we decided to target my trip for the second half of December, 2024.
Travel planning:
I will discuss more details of trip planning in a later installment, but in a nutshell I made almost all of my travel arrangements, flights and hotel reservations via Travelocity. On Travelocity, which is owned by Expedia, you can find hotels from $100s per night to more modest amounts, and most of the hotels we stayed at cost under $100. Another significant benefit we had going for us was a very favorable exchange rate of about 150 Yen to $1 during our trip.
Now let's get started with my travel blog.....
Sunday, Dec 15 – Departure from Cleveland
I left home at 5 AM for an 8:35 AM flight to Denver. My brother was kind enough to both take me to and then pick me up from the airport on the other end of the trip – and, yes I owe him! I traveled with a 34L backpack, which I checked, and a smaller backpack, which I took as a carry-on and ultimately carried with me on my daily excursions in Japan.
Leaving from Denver later that day for Tokyo, I flew on a Boeing 787 for the 13+ hour flight to Tokyo Narita International Airport (NRT). The flight was smooth, and the food was good. For the long flight, they did provide access to a substantial movie library for free, and I took advantage of watching 'Die Hard,' a Christmas Tradition in my house, and 'Harry Potter: The Half-blood Prince,' both ironically co-starring the now departed Alan Rickman. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them, with the only disappointment being that I could not find 'A Christmas Story,' which is another household Christmas tradition.
During the flight, we crossed the International Date Line, so we arrived on Monday, December 16.
For some context, Japan is an island nation in East Asia located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland and includes four larger islands and hundreds of smaller islands. It is very close to North and South Korea, Russia as well as to the People's Republic of China, AKA: Communist China.
Monday, Dec 16: Arrival in Tokyo
We touched down at around 4 PM Tokyo time, and immediately I had a few moments of stress! Though I called my cell provider before leaving to learn about international roaming, when I took my phone off of Airplane Mode – nothing happened. My phone didn't connect! I knew that without my cell, I would have a real problem getting in touch with my son, who was already in Tokyo.
Luckily, I didn't completely lose my wits after being up for almost 24 hours, and I did what I always do when my phone seems to be on the fritz which means I rebooted it and that turned out to do the trick! With my phone now working, I was able to talk to my son to let him know I arrived, and to get the name of the train station closest to the hotel where we were staying.
I then made my way through immigration and customs, and it was there where I began to learn how much the Japanese really frown on smoking. My son had mentioned earlier you can only bring 10 cigars into country, but I didn't necessarily expect the customs lady to inspect the six cigars I brought, but she did. Later in the trip, I observed no smoking signs literally painted on the sidewalks and smoking booths in some of the hotels I stayed in. Ironically all of the convenience stores, more on them later, sold cigarettes, but I can only think of one situation where a saw someone smoking. Regardless, I was very glad I was able to get them through customs because smoking cigars is one of the activities my son and I really enjoy doing together!
The next stop in the airport was to get my Japan Rail (JR) Pass. The JR Pass is a good investment which allows you to take any JR train, local, regional or bullet, for 7, 14 or 21 days. With assistance from the helpful people at the JR desk, I got a reserved seat on a train to Shinjuku Station and then directions to catch another train to Ikebukuro Station, which got me close to the hotel. I was soon off to the races!
Unfortunately on the way there, I apparently used all my international roaming, and, again, I had no connectivity whatsoever. I finally got to the right station, and I knew I needed Wi-Fi so I could call my son on Whats App. So with the help of a kind stranger, I ended up at the Italian Tomato Cafe Jr., which had the Wi-Fi I needed and after a quick call he was there within 10 minutes.
We made our way to the hotel, where I dropped off my luggage, and then went to a hole-in-the-wall place for dinner and had noodles in beef broth. It was really good as was just about every meal I had in Japan. We then walked around for a while, and ended up at what I could best describe as a Japanese version of an arcade, but this arcade was four stories high! There were all kinds of electronic games you could play along with tons of claw games – which are called UFO catchers in Japan because of the claws resemblance to a UFO. With all the bright lights, noise and activity, it was all a bit overwhelming, and it was time to head to the hotel and get some sleep!
Tuesday, December 17: Tokyo Day 1
We got up at a reasonable hour, and headed out for breakfast at Mister Donut, a one-time rival to Dunkin' Donuts, but now both are owned by the same conglomerate! My son and I have been baseball fans over the years, and we even went to Cooperstown for Indian great Jim Thome's induction ceremony in 2018. So what was our first stop? Japan's Baseball Hall of Fame (HoF) of course!
Baseball was introduced to Japan in the 1880's, and they have made it their own. The Japanese HoF, which is located at the Tokyo Dome where the Yomiuri Giants play, is not as large as the one in Cooperstown, but it shows off a lot of great Japanese players. For example, most people don't realize that the professional baseball player with the most home runs is Sadaharu Oh with 868 homers during his career, which far eclipses Barry Bonds' Major League Baseball home run record of 762*! *- Allegedly performance-enhancing drug assisted record.
After the HoF visit, we walked through a beautiful garden called Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, which dates from 1669 and is right next door to the Tokyo Dome. We spent almost 2 hours walking through this beautiful garden oasis in the middle of Tokyo, and had a terrific lunch there as well. It was a very restful and peaceful place in the middle of a very bustling city!
Regarding Japan, it has a population of nearly 124 million, which makes it the world's eleventh-most populous country, and Tokyo is both the capital and the largest city. In fact, Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area in the world with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024.
The next and final stop for the day was the Tokyo Imperial Palace. Though all of the historic buildings were destroyed in WWII, the site is still very impressive, if for nothing else because of it's sheer size. The grounds cover over 1 square mile and there are many gardens, which still maintain a certain charm even in the winter. What most impressed me most was the huge moat which surrounds the whole site. I could not find the exact dimensions but it is on the order of four miles in length and at points 75 to 100 feet deep and mostly completed with shovels, picks and wheel barrels. It is very impressive to behold!
Wednesday, December 18: Tokyo Day 2
The first stop of the day was breakfast at McDonald’s. The menu was almost the same at the McDonald's right down the street from me.
Getting around Tokyo by rail is fairly easy, especially when using Google Maps. There are at least two entities which operate rail and subway lines within the city: Japan Rail and the Tokyo Metro. My JR pass worked on the JR lines, so I do not know the cost if I paid for each fare individually. For the Tokyo Metro, I had to get a PASMO card which you obtained at a PASMO kiosk. For whatever reason, you had to use cash to get the PASMO card, which means you first have to find an ATM and withdraw some Japanese Yen. The Tokyo Metro fares typically ranged from 120 to 240 Yen or about $0.75 to $1.50.
After breakfast, we took the subway to the Tokyo National Museum. The Japanese Gallery was really interesting, both because of the items on display and also from a technology integration standpoint. On the first floor, there was an 'interactive room' where you could look at projected images of artifacts from Japan’s prehistory to the Imperial period. By standing in marked areas in front of the display, you could control a ‘magnifying glass’ with hand motions to get a closer look at the artifact images being displayed. This interface with the museum made the objects more personal and almost tangible.
We also went next door to the Asian Gallery, which contained many artifacts from China, Persia and the region around Mesopotamia. It also had many Buddhist art and artifacts. While we were there, a class of what appeared to be high school students was there on a field trip, and they were engaged in a scavenger hunt of sorts looking to check the boxes for various objects in the museum on their list. What made them interesting to observe was they appeared to really be in an English class led by a Western teacher, and all of the dialog between the students themselves and the with the teacher was in English. I have to say I was very impressed with their mastery of English!
When I travel, I like to tour capital buildings, so our next stop was to visit the Japanese Parliament, which is called the Diet. Serendipitously we arrived just in time for the very last tour of the day! The building was completed in 1938 and is impressive! As part of the tour, we were actually able to enter the House Of Councilors and heard and heard a recording describing the history and purpose of the chamber. Ironically, the recording was in English, and our tour guide had to translate it for the vast majority of the tour group who were Japanese! The Emperor of Japan is still the head of state, and he is present to open the three legislative sessions per year. The Diet was well worth the time and effort!