TOKYO, Japan–In celebration of her fiftieth birthday, Miya Kajikuri and the Dayton Chronicle took a trip to visit her family here last September. But she and her family met adverse weather conditions, making for an interesting adventure.

"We started in Tokyo to visit family and then got on a cruise with stops in Osaka, Hiroshima, Karatsu, Busan (South Korea), Nigata, Aomori, and then back to...