Heavy snow continues to fall in Tokyo on Saturday, it’s one of the biggest storms I’ve experienced in Japan. This would be just an ordinary snowfall for Rochester, NY, where nothing would be closed and school would go on as normal.

At breakfast I saw Michael Hagedorn with some of his students who were on their way to Obuse, near Nagano to visit Shinji Suzuki’s garden. Michael studied there about seven years ago and is returning for a few days. Mr. Suzuki is in Tokyo setting up the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition Part 2 and the new Japan Suiseki Exhibition. Since I’ve never visited Mr. Suzuki’s garden, Marc Arpag and I immediately changed our plans and joined Michael’s group. Everyone stayed in Obuse for a few days, but Marc and I returned to Tokyo a couple of hours later.

Obuse is a few hours from Tokyo in normal weather. But this…