" Echoing Nöin’s words, he wrote: ‘The spring mist filled the sky and, in spite of myself, the gods filled my heart with a yearning to cross the Shirakawa barrier.’ There were no surly border guards and no crowds of travellers when I finally reached the barrier — no merchants in sedan chairs, no daimyo on horseback with retinues of foot soldiers and servants and porters; no pilgrims, no priests; no ladies in palanquins or travellers in capes and straw hats, like the colourful figures in Hokusai’s woodblock prints. In fact, I nearly walked straight past it along the rough country road. "

― Lesley Downer , On the Narrow Road: Journey Into a Lost Japan