The plan was to sleep. Instead we followed the smell of grilled chicken through six side streets and ended up at a counter with no English menu and no regrets.
Northern Japan
Chasing the cherry-blossom front, south to north · April 2026
A temple of gold leaf tucked into a hillside of thousand-year cedars. We were the only ones there for an hour. The kind of quiet you can hear.
We timed the whole trip backwards from this: the moment the moat fills with fallen blossom and turns to a single sheet of pink. We made it with a day to spare.