Japan: Our First Asian Trip - Time Out #262

Asia is definitely a LONG way from Our Town.

Look on any world atlas, and you will quickly see it is a far distance from here to there.

My bride, Lady Deborah, and I, made this lengthy trip a few years ago, accomplishing it with the help of Delta Airlines. We began our trek at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport. We then connected to another jet aircraft in Salt Lake City, UT, flying onward to Seattle/Tacoma Airport, located in our far Pacific northwest. From there, we flew non-stop over the vast North Pacific Ocean to gigantic Tokyo, Japan. In 2020, Tokyo is supposedly the most populated metropolitan city in the world, with an estimated population of about 37,400,000 people! Put in perspective, this number is approximately the same population as the entire state of California! Wow!!

Being the primary motivator of our family travel for many years, I had carefully read and studied traveling to Asia for a long time. I had come to several conclusions during my hours of concentration, regarding this particular tourist destination; #1 We would see Japan as our first Asian country, and #2 We should visit it primarily via cruise ship. For the past 40 years, my bride and I have visited over 100 countries, and most of these travel experiences have been possible by moving from destination to destination, courtesy of many cruise ships, both ocean and river varieties.

Because of the incredible public popularity of cruising, competition among cruise companies has been enormous since the turn of the century 20 years ago. With the rapid increase in the shear numbers of new cruise vessels, the companies have offered more and more options, including destinations all over the globe. Asia has certainly been a major expansion area, and we took advantage of this by choosing the beautiful Diamond Princess vessel. Our 10-day cruise was round trip from/to Tokyo's major port city of Yokohama. We literally cruised around 3 of Japan's 4 major islands, Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, and also had an exciting port stop in Pusan, South Korea. Only the large, far northern island of Hokkaido. was not in our cruise itinerary. Through my extensive planning, too, we chose an spring visit, since the lovely and famous cherry blossom trees were in full bloom almost everywhere throughout the colorful country.

In our pre-trip research, we decided to stay 2 evenings in exciting Tokyo, before traveling the short 24 miles to board the cruise ship in Yokohama. In 2004, the popular motion picture, "Lost in Translation", starring Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray, was filmed in Tokyo. The movie's wonderful hotel scenes absolutely convinced us we wanted to stay in that place, and we did; the magnificent Park Hyatt Tokyo. What an incredible hotel, folks!

The hotel is 14 floors tall, and it sits on the top of the building with 38 non-hotel floors below it. It is located in a beautiful spot in the massive city, and the views of iconic, snow-covered Mt. Fuji out our suite's north windows were breathtaking. Also, breathtaking were the after-dark views of the incredible city from the magnificent New York Grill restaurant on the hotel's top floor. Their dining room has huge windows that make the magical city far below seem to come alive in the night sky.

Princess Cruise Lines makes the international travel boarding process almost effort-free. Our huge ship was full, and probably half our fellow cruisers were Japanese nationals. In fact, the public announcements were in two languages, and half the food/drink catered to both English and Japanese passengers. Those multi-ethnic elements of this particular cruise experience were very educational/interesting to my bride and me.

Our initial route of travel took us north, then eventually west through the waters between the major islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, and into the large Sea of Japan. We stopped at several smaller port cities, and took land excursions into temples, museums, and other cultural sites, immersing ourselves into this amazing, ancient Asian civilization/country. The scenery and the Japanese people were so genuine and memorable.

Our most meaningful port day was in Nagasaki, situated on the southwest side of the island of Kyushu. Here, Ms. Debbie and I elected to take a full day land excursion, visiting the giant Mitsubishi Museum and their on-grounds factory, and the incredible Nagasaki Peace Park, with its iconic statue, fountain, and other works, along with the adjacent Atomic Bomb Museum. This Japanese city was the second city America dropped an atomic bomb over during World War II, this bomb exploding August 9, 1945. It instantly killed 75,000 people, and it is estimated another 75,000 people have died since then, because of their radiation exposure. To read about this in books, watch videos on it, and discuss it, are all good in trying to understand this complicated, historical event. However, my experience in actually being there at ground zero (bomb detonated 500 meters in the air directly above today's park) will stay in my mind's eye forever.

Simple opinion. If it is possible for you to visit a country via a cruise ship, returning to your vessel to re-charge after visiting various locations on land, you should seriously consider this choice. It certainly worked for us in legendary Japan!

And, yes, my trusty crystal ball says ship cruising will, once again, return to the world travel stage!!