header pic
Date, Time, Currency Rate
Japan:
Tue, 04/21/2026, 6:29 PM
Central USA:
Tue, 04/21/2026, 4:29 AM
Currency: 1 USD = 159.02 JPY
as of 04/21/26 08:00 UTC

Japan Days

My Days in Japan

header pic 2

Welcome to Japan-Days.info

On this web site, I will share with you some stories and pictures from the time when I lived in Japan as a member of the United States Air Force, and from various visits that my wife, Ritsuko, and I have made there since my departure from the military in 1978. As you browse the site, please note that clicking (or tapping if using a phone or tablet) on any of the images will enable you to see an enlargement of the picture, clicking on it again will take it back to original size. Also, many words are highlighted to show the availability of a tooltip, which will provide you with more information about the word, and are invoked by hovering the mouse pointer over it (or tapping if using a phone or tablet).

I will add content to the site periodically, so please visit often.

News Feeds

News feed source: Kyodo News
Japan Wire by Kyodo News
Kyodo News on the Web: Daily international, Japan news, Japan News, national and local news coverage from the newspaper, breaking news updates, technology news, sports, reviews, listings.
Copyright 2025 Kyodo News All Rights Reserved

Digital Meltdown or Divine Grace? NEEDY GIRL OVERDOSE Anime Drops Emotional Episode 3 Preview
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 18:00:00 +0900

The "NEEDY GIRL OVERDOSE" anime has been taking the spring season by storm since its debut on April 4, 2026. As fans des

Read full story here
Rugby: Overseas-born players challenge new League One nationality rule
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:45:00 +0900

Japan's Lomano Lava Lemeki (center L) runs with the ball during the first half of a Rugby World Cup Pool D match against Samoa

Read full story here
South Korean police seek to arrest K-pop mogul behind BTS
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0900

Bang Si-Hyuk, chairman of HYBE, answers reporters' question upon his arrival at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in Seoul,

Read full story here
Baseball: Ohtani extends on-base streak to 52 games in win over Rockies
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:09:00 +0900

Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani logged his 52nd consecutive game reaching base safely on Monday, extending the longest streak by a

Read full story here
Kyodo News Digest: April 21, 2026
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0900

The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.----------Japan eases arms export rules to enable weapon

Read full story here
Czech PM Babis criticises Senate leader's Taiwan trip for damaging China business ties
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:40:00 +0900

Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte attend a press conference in Prague, Czech

Read full story here
USFK chief lodges protest against unification minister for leaking U.S. intelligence: lawmaker
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:15:00 +0900

SEOUL - The commander of the U.S. military stationed in South Korea, Gen. Xavier Brunson, has lodged a protest against the un

Read full story here
OPINION: Artemis, 50 years after Apollo, should open doors for young talent
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:03:00 +0900

Four astronauts who orbited the Moon aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft have returned to Earth. The mission, Artemis II, is part o

Read full story here
3 SDF members dead after explosion during training in southwestern Japan
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:42:00 +0900

The unintentional explosion of a tank shell at the Ground Self-Defense Force's training range in southwestern Japan left three

Read full story here
Japan eases arms export rules to enable weapons sales
Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:23:00 +0900

The Japanese government revised limits on defense equipment exports Tuesday to enable the sale of weapons overseas, its top spokes

Read full story here

Travel to Japan

Post Date: May 11, 2017

On May 9, Ritsuko and I returned from our 2017 Japan Trip. Everything pretty much came together as planned, and aside from both of us coming down with colds in the last week, there were no unpleasant surprises.

waiting at Ohare

At Chicago O'Hare, waiting to board our flight to Tokyo

Flying in economy class for 13 hours is not a pleasant experience, but it was tolerable. This year, we flew on Japan Airlines instead of ANA, on which we have flown on our previous three trips. JAL's widebody 777's are set up with a 3-3-3 seating configuration in the economy cabin as opposed to the 3-4-3 setup on ANA. Also, there is slightly more leg room on JAL. These small differences made for a huge improvement in overall comfort.

Improvements in comfort notwithstanding, by the time that we arrived at Narita, Tokyo International, I felt like I was some kind of creature that had been squeezed out of a tube, and was attempting to regain human form as I slithered into the jetway. Things got better after that. Immigration, customs, and the JR East office were not congested, and we were quickly processed, received our JR Rail Passes, and were on our way to Tokyo via the Narita Express train (NEX).

I'll try to fill in the details on some of the highlights of the trip later, but here is the a broad overview of where we went and where we stayed:

We spent the first night near Tokyo Station across the street from the Yaesu North Entrance at Hotel Ryumeikan Tokyo. We also stayed here on the first night of our 2016 trip. The hotel is secure, clean, and well appointed. Although it might seem rather pricey for the size of room, given the location where most hotels in the area cost double or more, it is a bargain. If you need to depart Tokyo Station early in the morning, the convenience of being across the street from one of the entrances near the Shinkansen platforms is worth the extra expense.

The next morning, we traveled by train to Kagoshima, where we spent seven nights in Kagoshima city at the Silk Inn Kagoshima, about 2 blocks from Kagoshima-Chuo Station. Booking a hotel near the station for seven contiguous nights was a challenge this year. This was our first stay at the Silk Inn, and we were quite happy with the hotel. The location was good, the hotel was clean and quiet, and the staff was excellent. We will definitely stay there again. During our stay in Kagoshima, we traveled by train several times to the north into rural Kagoshima Prefecture, where we got together with several family members. We also visited the newly constructed museum on the East China Sea coast in the town of Hashima that is dedicated to the Satsuma Students and their voyage to England in the 1860's. Another highlight of our stay in the Kagoshima area was a return visit to the Uenohara Jomon Period Archaeological Museum and the Kagoshima Prefecture Archaeology Center in Uenohara.

us with Osaka Castle in background

Bob and Ritsuko with Osaka Castle in the background - May 2017

From Kagoshima, we traveled by Shinkansen to Kyoto, where we spent six nights, staying at the Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kyoto-Hachijoguchi. This was our first time to stay in this hotel, and we were very pleased. It is a well appointed hotel located a couple of blocks south of Kyoto Station, and a block and a half north of the Karasuma Subway Line Kujo Station. The room was large enough so that we were not tripping over one another, and we had adequate space for luggage. The hotel serves a super breakfast buffet every morning that includes Japanese and western breakfast items. Last year, we left Kyoto a couple of weeks before the new Kyoto Rail Museum opened. This year, visiting the rail museum was on my must see/must do list. Our stay in Kyoto was during Golden Week, therefore, with the exception of the Kyoto Rail Museum and Nishiki Market, and other popular shopping areas, we avoided the more popular tourist destinations in order to avoid the crowds, opting instead for sites less visited or more remote.

Mt Fuji viewed from Shinkansen 2017

Mount Fuji viewed from the Shinkansen en route to Tokyo

The last leg of our journey took us back to Tokyo for the last week of our trip. For the third consecutive trip, we stayed in Asakusa near Sensoji Temple at a small residence hotel, B:Conte Asakusa. Ritsuko and I love staying in Asakusa. Although it does get rather crowded at times, especially on holidays, it is a laid back area with a rich history and lot of great small restaurants. We didn't do a lot during this leg of our trip. We visited some familiar haunts, ate some great food, and mostly hung out and relaxed as we prepared for the journey home.

Overall, it was a great trip, and although we just returned, we are already thinking about our next Japan trip, whenever that will be.

 | Published by: Japan Days  logo
 | Date Modified: July 28, 2023

Japan Culture

Post Date: September 25, 2019

"Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit." -- Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

"The taste of the doughnut" indeed ... Mr. Murakami makes a very astute observation. As Ritsuko and I were viewing and discussing pictures from our 2019 Japan trip, I was also working on the code for adding a tooltip feature on Japan-Days.info. Somehow, the conversation morphed into one involving the PHP function that I had been coding, and I must have been overly philosophical about the difference between a variable that is empty as opposed to one that is null, i.e. nothing vs something that is nothing. Ritsuko, sensing that I was in eminent danger of entering a zen coder meditative state, reminded me that perhaps instead of pondering some logical conundrum, I should just tell the story of our trip. So, I will attempt to do just that.

Every one of our visits to Japan subsequent to our moving to the U.S. has been in either the winter or spring. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy those seasons, with spring being perhaps my favorite of all, but we had not originally planned to visit in the spring of 2019. We had planned to go in the autumn of 2018, with a stay in Shibuya during Halloween. But, on the morning of the day that we were to leave for Chicago, a family emergency caused us to cancel our plans, and instead drive to Texas. On several levels, this was a sad and tragic event, a shock, etc, but when all is said and done, we just do what we must and move on. I am glad that we were able to get to Texas immediately, and that we didn't need to make an emergency return after arriving in Japan, so it all worked out. As a result of that cancellation, and after enduring a particularly brutal winter, we seriously needed a Japan fix, therefore this was to be the make-up trip.

Some videos from our 2019 trip

Ritsuko shot this video of the Sakurajima Ferry departing Kagoshima City.

Our flight from Kagoshima to Tokyo on approach to Haneda Airport over Tokyo Bay

The completely automated unmanned commuter train, Yurikamome Line, entering the Rainbow Bridge over upper Tokyo Bay

The basic plan for this trip was to be two phases, or rather two locations ... an eight night stay in Kagoshima and then seven nights in Tokyo. Since in country travel was to be the basic here to there and back to here scenario, travel by air would be the most efficient, and it was also the least expensive. Hence the aforementioned basic plan: drive to Chicago -> fly to Tokyo -> upon arrival, bus to Haneda -> fly to Kagoshima -> stay 8 nights -> fly to Tokyo -> stay 7 nights -> fly to Chicago -> drive home. Beyond that basic plan, we had a wish list of things to do that was pretty simple. A couple of days during our Kagoshima stay, we planned to meet with some of Ritsuko's family members. Aside from family activities, I wanted to re-visit the Reimeikan Museum in Kagoshima City, to take a picture of Sakurajima from the lookout on Shiroyama, and buy some high quality katsuobushi. Everything else would be spur of the moment. While in Tokyo, items on our wishlist included visit Yūshūkan - the museum at Yasukuni Shrine, visit the Togo Shrine in Harajuku, and we planned to travel to Yokosuka to tour the Battleship Mikasa. The rest of the agenda was no agenda; hmmm... is that a blank space or an entity?

First meal after arrival - soba at Haneda Airport

Sakurajima and Kagoshima City viewed from the Shiroyama scenic lookout.

Doing something touristy in Tokyo: Ritsuko at the Hachiko statue, Shibuya Station.

After enduring the 13 hour non-stop, fully booked flight from Chicago O'Hare, we arrived at Tokyo Narita Airport in the mid afternoon, tired but only part way there. Our final destination that day was to be the Hotel Solaria Nishitetsu in Kagoshima City. So, dazed but fortunately not too confused to be functional, we proceeded immediately to the bus ticket counter, and purchased tickets to Haneda Airport. We could have traveled by train to Haneda, but, regardless of route, that would have required at least one train change, so for a couple who were substantially less than 100% coherent and bearing luggage, the bus seemed to be our best option.

The bus ride from Narita to Haneda is rather interesting; the route takes you through part of rural Chiba Prefecture and then, via the Wangan Doro toll road, to the north end of the bay, going past that garish looking Disney resort, then past Tokyo Sea Life Park, and passing through the Odaiba area before descending into a short tunnel under the bay, and finally emerging in an area north of Haneda Airport. At least, that is what I saw the last time we did this when we made an emergency trip to Japan in Dec 2017. On this trip, I was asleep during the majority of the bus ride. Did all of that I described above really happen? I'll never know.

The only thing that I knew for certain was that by the time that we arrived at Haneda, I was hungry ... really hungry, and so was Ritsuko. We wanted soba, real soba from a fast service soba shop aka たちぐい そば (tachigui soba) , the kind that you can only find in Japan. After checking in for our flight to Kagoshima, and ridding ourselves of our luggage, we found the nearest soba shop inside the airport. Ahhhhh ... gastronomic bliss as each slurp of perfectly seasoned noodles and broth sought to fill the void in our aching empty stomachs. Hmmm... was my stomach really empty, or was it something else that felt like empty, some entity, perhaps a memory from an earlier decade beckoning me to reconnect to a place I love by filling an emptiness with something familiar.

Empty was the status of my overall energy level when we landed at the Kagoshima airport. The airport is about 20 miles from Kagoshima city. There is no train service, however the bus service to and from there is excellent. Our flight was the last one into Kagoshima for the evening, and we were able to board one of the last busses to Kagoshima-chuo. One of the many convenient features of staying at Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel in Kagoshima is that the highway bus station is in the same building. So, after arriving, the hotel front desk is only an elevator ride away. We finally got to our room at about 10:30 that night ... roughly 25 hours since we had checked in for our flight at Chicago O'Hare. Needless to say, we were very tired, but we were also very happy to have arrived at our destination safely. We opened the curtains and the blinds of our window, and let the night time lights of Kagoshima city and Sakurajima fill the room with a mellow glow as we drifted into a peaceful night's sleep.

The beach near Shimoda where my friends and I went on holiday during the summer of 1974

The next morning, as we entered the breakfast buffet, a decades old memory drifted into my mind. In the summer of 1974, I was a single 24 year old Air Force Staff Sergeant stationed at Yokota Air Base, living in a barracks with many other young Airmen and NCO's. Based on information handed down from others who had ventured out into the country, one of my friends had been told of a minshuku near a small beach outside Shimoda that was open to taking in young American service men. So, with some very sketchy information, and with no reservations, four of us ventured out for a beach holiday on the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula. Fortunately for us, we didn't have to sleep on the beach, because the information was good, and the minshuku owners welcomed us into their inn.

Breakfast from the morning buffet at Hotel Solaria Nishitetsu, Kagoshima

Included in the price of our lodging were two daily meals, breakfast and dinner. The first morning there was a hajimete moment for all of us, as we sat down to a Japanese breakfast graciously served by our host family. A Japanese breakfast typically consists of rice, miso soup, fish or perhaps a small portion of meat, pickled radishes, and some combination of fresh or steamed vegetables. We stared, momentarily at what was put before us, and without any verbal communication between the four of us, we proceeded to eat everything that was served. It was delicious, better than any of us had even imagined. Also, what we ate in the mornings sustained us throughout the day until dinner. It had to ... we had no money for food outside the minshuku.

The Solaria Nishtetsu Hotel in Kagoshima serves a superb breakfast buffet. The majority of the clientèle of the hotel are Japanese, therefore it stands to reason that most of the food items on the buffet would be those from which one could assemble a proper Japanese breakfast. There are some western items available, but not in abundant variety. When we stay there, I seldom see foreign guests partaking in the local breakfast fare, and instead choose some pastry, fruit, omelette, etc. I usually hear westerners describe a Japanese breakfast as an acquired taste. When I hear that, I have to wonder if they have ever actually taken the steps, or rather the step, necessary to acquire the taste. That step would be to actually eat a proper Japanese breakfast. If they have not, then I would call that a missed opportunity.

Whenever I get into such a discussion, it always brings back memories from my afore described 1974 trip to Shimoda, when I and three other young American men instantly, even if perhaps driven by necessity, acquired the taste. I will be forever glad that I did.

That morning, sitting in the casually elegant hotel dining room while looking out the window at Kagoshima Chuo station and Amu Plaza, and eating a magnificent breakfast, all of the accumulated tension and anxiety from our travels the day before seemed to have melted away. Well rested and well fed, I now felt as though we had truly arrived. Any feeling of blankness or emptiness, whether real or symbolic had disappeared, and we were now prepared to embark upon the rest of our journey.

 | Published by: Japan Days  logo
 | Date Modified: April 23, 2025

My Air Force Days

me with camera 1977

Me with movie camera - 1977

I was going through some boxes of old pictures and slides, when I came upon a small box full of 8mm movie films. And no, they weren't the "training films" that used to sometimes surface on poker nights at Yokota. These were movies that I shot with my Canon 814 Super 8 movie camera back in the early to mid 1970's.

In that box, one was labeled WB57 taxi. I had not thought about having made that film for many years. Thinking back to the early part of my Yokota tour, I remembered shooting a short clip one winter day, I think it was in Dec 1973, or possibly January 1974, of a WB-57F, aka RB-57F, taxiing on the parking ramp toward the runway.

I was standing on the wing of a WC-135, working on a U-1 foil, and luckily, I had taken my movie camera onto the aircraft with me that day. When I noticed that the B57's engines were starting, I ducked inside the aircraft, grabbed my camera, and went back out on the wing to get ready to film. As you can see in the video, standing on the wing of the 135 was the perfect vantage point from which to shoot. Unfortunately, I only had enough film left in the camera to shoot part of the taxi, and didn't have an extra film cassette to film the takeoff. Anyway, I am very happy to have taken the movie that day. I just had the super 8 converted to digital so that I could enjoy watching it in a more convenient format, and so that I could share it via this website.

Notice how low the wing tips are; the airplane must have had a full load of fuel. It looks like the left wing tip almost clips a snow bank as the plane rolls by.

Here are a couple of images that I captured from the video.

This is a WB-57F high altitude reconnaissance plane taxiing toward the runway at Yokota Air Base in 1973

WB57F

Another view - WB-57F Yokota AB

 
p-systems

WB57F P-systems and spheres in the Yokota AB MET/ARE shop

The WB-57F was a pretty amazing aircraft. It had a wing span that was almost twice the fuselage length, and was powered by two TF-33 fan jet engines (sometimes two smaller J-60 engines were mounted outboard of the main engines). The aircraft had a max altitude of about 70,000ft. Although it could be equipped with a variety of special equipment, the standard configuration consisted of a B400 detection unit, an I-2 foil and single U-1 foil for particulate air sampling, and a P-system, which consisted of two platforms mounted in the nose. Each P-system platform, several of which are on the floor in the picture on the left, had two compressors, and held four 900 cu in steel spheres that could be pressurized to 3000psi. This equipment was the basic gear used to sample debris from nuclear tests performed, at that time, primarily by our cold war adversaries, USSR and China.

Prior to my tour at Yokota, these aircraft had been assigned to the 56th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron. After the 56th WRS was deactivated, 9th Weather Reconnaissance Wing left an operational detachment there, to which was assigned 3 of these aircraft along with the flight crews and necessary operational staff. Maintenance personnel, including MET/ARE were re-assigned to the 610 MASS.

I don't remember exactly when the 9th Weather Wing detachment was de-activated, and the aircraft left Yokota, but I think that it was very late 1974 or early 1975. That was the end of my experience supporting these unique aircraft.

The last news article that I read about the WB-57F was from about 4 years ago in a piece that discussed an operation in Afghanistan run by NASA utilizing the last two remaining operational WB-57F's as a platform for a highly specialized communications system. It was good to know that a couple of them were still flying high.

 | Published by: Japan Days  logo
 | Date Modified: March 1, 2025
X