Japan is beautiful, time travel is exhausting, and I discovered both as I celebrated twenty years of marriage with my husband.

We experienced sakura snow, skyscrapers no wider than a small room, whale sharks, endless stone steps to reach mountain top fortresses, peaceful shrines, and food that I’m going to attempt to recreate, if only to get a hint of the deliciousness. Often I felt like I was in the middle of a Studio Ghibli set. 

As for time travel–we flew out of Japan at 6pm on a Tu...