We are the only visitors at several historical attractions including the Yoshijima House and Kusakabe Mingeikan merchants’ manors and the Jinya, or Government House. The interiors feature fine craftsmanship, including a small housebed in the Kukasabe for a cat. I am reminded of a Victorian bookcase we owned once that included a cat bed.

We want to go to the Hida Folk Village but decide that the snow is too deep to trudge through to visit an entirely outdoor museum and so we board the train to go back down to Nagoya and on to Kyoto.

When we arrive in Kyoto three hours later it is pouring and it takes us a while just to find the north central exit from the station. But we have a good map and, though drenched, we walk to and find our ryokan Kaede Sakura. Later that night, Warner receives a call from his friend Maya, who the next day leads us to many of Kyoto’s most remarkable sights (not an easy task when there are over 200 shrines and 1600 temples), including the 394-ft long Sanjusangendo Hall with its 1,000 gilded wooden statues and the Kiyomizu Temple with its panoramic view of the city. When Maya leaves us to go to work at her university, we visit the glowing Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion of Rokuon-ji Temple) and we also make the trek to the Ryoanji Temple with its masterpiece Zen rock garden only to find that it is closed for construction until next week. The many-blocks-long Nisheki market is a fantastic place to shop and to eat, with produce on display almost as an art form. The buses we take ‘round the city give us moments of concern since we can’t read the kanji characters (romanji lettering can sometimes be far and few between) but they also give us a chance to be in the midst of people who live day in and day out in this beautiful, historic city. At one point I see a young mother on the bus with three very young children, two on her back and one in her hand, and it reminds me of my sister Rita when she had three very young all at one time.