The sky doles out snow with a miserly hand in central Kyoto but is far more generous in the north of the prefecture. So I make the two-hour journey to Kitamura, or North Village.

The place is best known for its traditional thatched-roof houses but, on the train, all I can think about is a white winter.

I've been petitioning the sky for the past few days. On the morning that I set out, I chant 'Snowsnowsnowsnow' in the carriage. But only in my head so I don't wake the passenger dozing beside me.

When I transfer to a bus, rain mixed with snow sprinkles is falling. But it's the white stuff I want, not the wet.

Snowsnowsnowsnow...The bus goes deeper into the mountains; a light dusting lies on the peaks. Snowsnowsnow...The bus enters a tunnel and bursts out into flurries of white. Snow!

By the time the bus drops me off at Kitamura, the snow is falling so hard I need an umbrella. Within minutes of walking on the icy pavement, I slip. But I can't stop grinning.

Not knowing anyone well enough to chuck a snowball at, I go for lunch at a soba restaurant. A waiter tells me to sit anywhere I like, so I grab the table closest to a large heater. If there's one drawback to snow, it's the way the temperature has to plunge before it appears.

The restaurant serves soba handmade with locally grown buckwheat. And for culinary reasons I can't quite follow, the noodles are served ice-cold. At least the tea's hot.

After lunch, it's a bit hard to leave the kerosene heater. On my way out, a notice at the exit stops me. It says: 'This door has to be opened manually.'

I have a sudden vision of tourists waiting patiently in front of the door and wondering why it won't slide open. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in the city any more.

The village lies at the foot of a mountain range. At the start of the slope is a wooden shed with two shelves for vegetables from the nearby fields. One takes whatever one wants, slipping the money into a metal box. No one mans the booth to check. Toto, we're definitely not in the city any more.

I creep up the slope. Of the 50 or so buildings in the village, 38 are in the old style with thatched roofs angled steeply so as to shed snow more easily.

The local folk museum is one of those houses. When I step inside, an elderly woman invites me to have a cup of tea. We sit around the irori, a hearth set into the floor. In the past, it would have been the centre of everyday life, a combination of dining area, heater, lamp and cooktop.

Smoke rises from the fire into the thatch, keeping it dry. Known as kayabuki, the thatch has a framework of beams and bamboo rafters over which grasses and reeds are laid. Not a single nail is used. The only things keeping the ceiling from crashing down are rope and human ingenuity.

I go upstairs for a closer look. Though they have been secured, the grass stalks still burst through the gaps in the bamboo frame. It is as though someone has strapped fields to the roof.

I won't say a word against concrete and plastic but I urge that we not give up all such old places. If you've ever stood beneath such a thatch - with grass over your head and wood and bamboo beneath you; things that thrive, like you, on air and water and sunlight - you would not need to ask why.

Barriers dissolve - barriers between man and building, room and room. I can hear the conversations below. When the other two visitors leave, I can hear more - birds, the wind, a dog barking. These walls are not walls against the world. The same sea of sound washes over everything.

I can hear, just about, the river running past the village. And I hear the unmistakable sounds of a hammer in action.

After a while, I go downstairs because building materials that connect you with the environment also have a way of connecting you with the cold.

I poke around in the annexe, which houses the toilet, essentially a hole cut into the wooden floor. I peer down the toilet: I'm happy to report that no one's used it recently.

But the thatched roof is calling so I go back up for another look.

When I come down, I run into the caretaker.

'Oh, you're still here,' she says.

'Yup.'

'Do you have something to do with architecture? Every now and again, we get people like that and they look at everything really intently.'

This is what happens when you stare down toilets; people get the wrong idea about you.

'I just like old houses,' I say, and ask if she was born in the area.

'No, I moved here eight years ago because the flowers are beautiful.' She smiles, a little shy. 'I like flowers.'

She tells me that the village gets the most visitors in November. 'They rush in on tour buses, then rush off again, but I wish they'd spend more time here to really enjoy the place.'

With the same thought in mind, I've booked a night's stay at an inn nearby.

As I climb up the slope, I finally realise what's odd about the village: There are no fences. I can cut across property lines, walk through people's gardens, help myself to the odd cabbage...Toto, did I mention that we're not in the city any more?

But I'm not just in a different place. Every step in this village without fences takes me further into a different time.

So, what happened next?

I'd like to tell you of the goat-antelope, the mandarin orange granny and bathing in the snow. But it'll take too long. So I'll come back in a fortnight to finish the story. Same place, different time.

tastingjapan@gmail.com

The writer, a former sub-editor with The Straits Times, is studying Japanese in Kyoto.