There is a Japan that most visitors never find, along a rugged coast where the Sea of Japan meets the shore and centuries of isolation forged some of the world’s most extraordinary craft traditions. This is Hokuriku: the three-prefecture arc of Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui that stretches along Honshu’s northwestern flank. Once requiring a full day’s journey to reach from Tokyo, the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen has redrawn the map of Japanese travel, placing …
