When I visited Shirakawa-go over the long weekend in January, I found Hîragi, a cute restaurant along the snow-covered the vehicle-access road to the lookout point in Ogimachi, Shirakawa-go. I was intrigued, of course, because one of my favorite kanji is 柊 (hîragi), holly, because the radicals mean tree-winter. What sealed the deal was the…