Tokyo is the largest City in Japan with around 37 million people, which is about a 3rd of the total population. Key exports include machinery, vehicles, and manufactured goods. Tokyo was formerly called Edo until the capital moved from Kyoto (capitol city) to Tokyo (East Capital) in 1868 immediately following the end of the Tokugawa regime. (Wiki) Today Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world. Our afternoon in Tokyo was spent taking a nap in the hotel, since the time is so different (14 hour time difference).

Our arrival to Tokyo was preceded by a 12 hour flight. Now, if you have ever been on a flight, or have not, that is a long time. It was actually really enjoyable due to the comfortable seats, the leg room, the screens to watch movies and play games, the members of the Wind Ensemble were generally close together, so we had each other’s company as well. I sat by Sofia Bouffard and messaged some of my percussion friends that graduated last year. They wish they could be here and wished us a safe trip. I was able to do some reading, watched a few movies, took a 3-4 hour nap as well. We were served two meals on the trip, and a snack. I had a steak stir fry for one meal and scrambled eggs with sausage for another meal. They had a lot of variety for other portions of the meal as well such as kiwi and potatoes. For the snack, we had some flatbread pizza and ice cream. We flew from Minneapolis and flew over Canada, Alaska, and then flew over Eastern Russia and then flew to Japan. The ride was quite smooth. After a long flight, we were finally in Japan, the moment we had been waiting for around 8 months!

After we settled in the hotel, we went to supper. On our way there, we got to see a little bit of the city. The restaurant was only a few blocks away, but on the way there, I noticed a lot of different city smells. They weren’t anything like the typical smells we encounter in the midwest, but it did have a city smell that was not always great, but for the most part, it was not bad. They have much smaller streets and many streets that go in different directions and intersect at strange angles. They drive on the other side of the road, and a lot of the time, it was hard to tell if the paths that we were on were either walkways or roads. Every once in a while, there were stairs where the sidewalks were, and they would typically have a ramp to be able to walk a bike up and down as well.

Sunset on the way to dinner. Art in Hotel Metropolitan Lobby

At night, we grabbed supper with one of our hands on travel agents, Kiyoshi Yamamoto. We ate at a traditional Japanese restaurant and had all you can eat Sukiyaki. The dining experience was quite different because there was a wooden bench that went all the way around the table. Before sitting down, we took our shoes off before getting on the bench. We would then walk a short way on the bench before sitting down. We actually were able to make our food in a communal setting. We had a dish that we would load up that was on a flame. The Japanese use broths in their food quite often, so there was the broth and then a mixture of meats, onions, tofu, mushrooms and several other vegetables. There was a salad bar as well. When getting food from the salad bar, we would get out of benches, put on slippers that the restaurant provided and then sat back down.

After that, several of us went to a nearby arcade, where there were a lot of games to play and a lot of gamers as well! The arcade was 5 stories tall plus 2 more stories, one for the basement, and another for a cafe at the top. The arcade had crane games, games like Dance Dance Revolution, and other rhythm and coordination games like that. We got there around 9 p.m. and there were hundreds of people inside, and the rows were packed. I did not play anything, but I watched my friends Jami Goetz and Jamie Flanegan play a taiko drum game, which was fun to watch. One day of Japan, and it’s been really exciting so far!

I never thought I would actually make it to Japan a few years ago. It has been a journey to actually get to this trip, but it has been worth it, and the trip has just begun. Some personal takeaways and observations that I have had so far are: try all of the food, it is probably better than you think (Sukiyaki was really good), their culture is much quieter than ours (in the airport, I could hear what the staff were saying from a ways away), and keep your eyes open because there is always something to learn.