2025’s vacation was a fun one. A day delay, 43 hours in the airport, 1 missed flight, and a horrible case of bronchitis yielded a surprisingly fun, enriching vacation! Just over 10 days of walking, exploring, and trudging through the worst cold of the year (so far) let me take some beautiful photos, make beautiful memories, and see some breathtaking sights. Here’s just a few of my favorites, with a real blog post to follow!
This trip was… Interesting, to say the least! It started off at Indianapolis Int’l airport, missing my 5:40AM flight, and having a ticket related setback. Unfortunately, that initial ticket wasn’t refundable. To make it worse, the day before I left I picked up some sort of ugly bug, mirroring the symptoms of bronchitis, but with no fever and a bad fatigue. Spending the next 43 hours at the Indy airport while waiting for the new flight was… not enjoyable. Thankfully, my travel partner and good friend, Calvin, kept me company for the delay. Lots of laughs, airport food, and possibly the most uncomfortable “naps” of my life made that time fly (pun intended).
Once we finally got in the air, we headed to Chicago, sprinted for 20 minutes from the regional terminal to the international terminal in order to catch our connecting flight to Toronto. Canada didn’t look too bad, but I wish I got to see more than the airport. The flight from Toronto to Tokyo Narita airport wasn’t too bad, and it went by quite quickly!
Stepping off of the plane in Tokyo, I got to show Calvin the lay of the land, and we headed to immigration to officially enter the country. Thankfully the trip from the airport to our capsule hotel in Shin-Okubo was smooth and uneventful as well!
The bad news was, it was quite evident that my body was not a fan of the walking, flying, and riding while under the punishment of the sickness that had only gotten worse since our departure. I think that after getting checked into the hotel, I marched down the block to Family Mart for some fried chicken and drinks, and returned to my humble capsule to sleep for 12, wonderfully comfortable hours straight.