Noto

Percival Lowell’s journey toward Japan’s remote Noto Peninsula begins with a shut gate, a departing train, and a three-hour wait. From a Tokyo rooftop, he finds an unexpected remedy: a sky alive with enormous paper carp, swimming above the city.

In May 1886, Lowell and his companion Yejiro set out from Tokyo toward a little-traveled corner of Japan, by train, rickshaw, and whatever the road demands. A missed connection gives way to spring plains, distant mountains, and an inn that welcomes the foreign travelers more warmly than Lowell expects. His account moves between sharp-eyed comedy and a traveler’s wonder at a country changing around him, where modern railway rules collide with older rhythms of life. What will the road reveal as Lowell and Yejiro press on toward Noto?

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