We had a three hour layover in Tokyo before heading to Beijing. I was shocked by the landscape we saw flying in. I guess having heard how overpopulated Japan is, I figured I would see nothing but skyscrapers and high rise apartment buildings. Instead, what I saw was this: miles and miles of rice paddies. Flying in the sun glared off the water filled paddies creating a stain-glass effect. It was quite beautiful, and very serene.

We flew on Al Nippon airlines from Tokyo. I was super impressed by the respect and politeness with which the flight attendance and crew served. The flight attendants all bore pleasant sincere smiles, and reflected a meekness and humility previously unseen to me of American flight attendants (or Americans in general, I might add.) The Narita airport was immaculately clean.

After viewing part of the country from the air and meeting a small subset of the people, we all decided, Japan should go on our “Let's visit” list.