New Delhi, May 8 -- It was 2-3 hours into my bus journey from Tokyo to Takayama when I opened my eyes and looked out of the window. The landscape had changed. The tall buildings of the city were nowhere to be seen and instead the bus was slowly driving past hills packed with alpine cedar, the trees covered in fresh snow. I could see snowflakes floating in the air before settling on the branches. For the next couple of hours, the bus drove past alpine lakes, thin streams, tunnels and snow-covered hills. In five and a half hours, we were away from the chaos of the city and in the lap of the Japanese Alps.

Takayama is a quiet, preserved city in the Hida region of the Gifu Prefecture. During the Edo period (1601-1868, the period under the ru...