This is the 2nd of 2 parts of Chronicle Sports Editor Thomas Grant’s interview with Lexington High School baseball coach Brian Hucks.

Over the summer, Hucks joined his wife Stephanie on a trip to Japan where she learned more about her family ancestry.

During their visit, Hucks had an opportunity to see Japanese baseball as well as historical sites.

Q. How long was the trip to Japan?

A. It was a 16-hour flight. We flew from Columbia to Minnesota and that was 3-4 hours. Then, we got on a 13-hour flight from Minnesota to Japan.

That was a challenge. I’m a big guy. We were sitting in the back, and it was packed. The plane was full. You know it’s a long flight when you get 3 meals while you’re on the plane. I flew a little bit when I was in pro ball, but I’ve never been on a plane that long. And the 8-hour time change was a challenge.

Q. What was most interesting about taking part in another culture?

A. Just being able to travel. We travelled all over Japan and saw old temples and shrines. Also, being in a big city and seeing the ebb and flow and how things work. The food was obviously interesting. A lot of sushi. A lot of noodles. There’s not many burger or pizza joints. I learned to appreciate how people value things and how they do things in a different part of the world. This is something we will look back on and check off that we saw a different part of the world.

Q. Having looked at your wife’s history, has that encouraged you to look into your own family history?

A. I guess I need to go back and see. I think my family’s history is mostly from England and Ireland. I haven’t really thought about that. But that would be cool to trace and see where my family originally came from.

Q. How long did it take to tour Japan?

A. We spent 4 days in downtown Tokyo and then we traveled to where her family is. When we got there, Stephanie’s grandmother’s family met her and took her to their home near the coast in a different part of Japan 2 hours away.

So we did the tourist thing in downtown Tokyo and that was a neat experience. We took the transit system and we had all our bags and everything. Going through the train system and traveling in and out, that’s really the only way to get around. There’s a million people getting on and off and everybody is much to themselves.

On these trains no conversations are going on.

Everybody sits there and they’ve got their music on and they’re reading. It’s not a social environment.

We spent 4 days near the coast. We took a bullet train (known in Japan as the Shinkansen), which was probably the coolest thing we did. It was a 2-hour trip, but we went to the other side of Japan. This thing goes 250 miles per hour. You could see the countryside. We went to Kyoto, which is an historic area with plenty of temples.

Q. When you returned did you see things differently about her culture?

A. Not really. We’ve embraced that culture for as long as we’ve been together. Stephanie and I like that kind of food. She would make her own sushi.

My son Jackson loves it. He’d rather have sushi than a hamburger. It’s always been a part of our lives.

The thing that was coolest for me is I had heard Stephanie’s grandmother talk about her brother and family and all that.

Now, I was able to go over and see it because you can’t always appreciate it until you do.