It's January 2020. We've just purchased plane tickets to Osaka for early April. We've established a rapport with a Warmshowers host who has kindly offered to put us up for our first two nights in Japan. Everything is going swimmingly.

At the time, people ask us whether we think it's safe to travel to Asia, due to worries about a SARS-like outbreak in China. We aren't worried.

On February 29, three cases of COVID-19 are reported in nearby Kirkland, Washington. OK, now we're worried! Not so much that we'd catch the virus in Japan, but more that we might carry it there ourselves, or at least be ostracized as foreigners during this very uncertain time.

Upon calling the airline and discovering that we could receive a full refund on our tickets, we scuttle our plans to tour Japan indefinitely.

Japan soon shuts off its borders to tourists, remaining closed until October 2022.

We make plans to fly to Japan in April 2024, then decide that we're too busy. We postpone the trip to September, when we can take a full two months off, enough time to cover most of the length of the country.

This is the story of a tour that is long overdue. We hope that it will have been worth the wait.