The trip was the timetable. Hiroko's studio had reserved Green Car seats for every leg, ryokan check-ins synced to train arrivals down to the quarter-hour, and a hand-written note in our Kyoto room explaining the seven-minute walk to Eikan-dō for the maples at the right hour. We have not been on a more competently-routed trip in ten years.

The cherry blossom was two weeks old when we arrived and we panicked; Hiroko did not. She moved our Kyoto nights forward by two days at no charge and we got the falling petals at the Philosopher's Path for an hour at six in the morning, alone. The country went on. It was the trip.

We came for the snow and not for the food and the food turned out to be the trip. Yufuin for two nights was the studio's idea and the right one. A ryokan whose owner brought hot sake to our outdoor bath at the moment the snow began to fall. Tibro and Hiroko had quietly briefed the owner about my back; the bath was the only one with a low step.