Countdown begins to my return to Japan next week, it’s part II of a secret project about chefs, ryokans, culture, and regionality.  I’ll be back in Sapporo on Hokkaido; did not expect to be there so soon.  And a side trip to Seoul for the night.

To prepare, I’m reading a terrific history of the country written by an environmental historian out of U-Montana.  I’d no idea of the diversity of responses to the Meiji Restoration, which followed the arrival of Admiral Perry’s black ships in 1853.  Nor of smallpox immunity, nor a failed invasion of the Korean peninsula in the 1500’s.

Closer to home, shoots are breaking through the earth, I saw a hawk fly over the Charles River yesterday, and the air and light are changing day to day.