It's winter. Inclement weather in December far north of Tokyo should come as no surprise: the farms and forests are normally blanketed in snow. So while preparing for our stay at the "House of Light," an installation in Niigata Prefecture by U.S. conceptual artist James Turrell, we aren't deterred when we receive a call from the "House's" staff warning us to anticipate snowfall.

Thoughts of snow-covered rice fields and boots sinking deep into white drifts takes my mind far from Tokyo, to the winters of my Canadian childhood, of days spent engaged in battles in imperishable snow forts and woollen mitts half frozen under sequins of tiny ice balls. But nature has other plans.

My fellow travelers and I leave Tokyo and head north by way of shinkansen, and in two hours rural Niigata welcomes us with stretches of farmland — an endless tapestry of yellow, intermittently broken by the white of snowy peaks. As the train nears Tokamachi Station, the sky is azure, the air bright and sharp, and the ground free from any hints of snow.