A Twisting Travelogue of Kyoto

Morimi Tomihiko sets out for Kyoto.

Already we have encountered the first twist in our narrative.

Tomihiko so persistently sets his novels in Kyoto that he has deceived the world into thinking that he lives there. But the truth is that for the past year and a half he has lived in Tokyo.

When you sit at your desk and tell lies all day, the lies eventually start to blur with reality. He has swapped Kyoto Tower for Tokyo Tower, the Imperial Palace in Kyoto for the palace in Tokyo, Nishi Honganji for Tsukiji Honganji. To the Tomihiko who lives in Tokyo, Kyoto is a delusion; what is so strange about his presence in Tokyo? After lying to himself for so long, Tokyo and Kyoto have begun to blur together in his mind.

When Tomihiko wakes up in bed on the morning of his departure, he believes he is in Kyoto. Ah yes, my editors will be coming to Kyoto today, he thinks, preparing to go and meet them. After drinking a leisurely cup of coffee he gets on the Karasuma subway line to go to Kyoto Station, but for some reason finds himself on the Chiyoda line instead. He thinks for a moment and realizes that he is in Tokyo. To meet his editors at Kyoto Station he must first go to Kyoto himself. How very tiresome it all is.

Thus Tomihiko misses his bullet train. To his chagrin, rather than him greeting his editors at the station it is they who are waiting to greet him: another twist in our narrative.

Tomihiko gets on the next bullet train. He is humming a tune through his nose when he gets a call from his editor who is also on his way to Kyoto, saying, “I thought we’d be on the same train!”

“I’m right behind you,” Tomihiko tells him, gazing blankly out at the pleasant scenery that speeds by outside the window.

Two hours later the train pulls into Kyoto Station, where his editors are waiting for him.

“You’re late, dammit!” one of them says. He is holding a large travel bag, as if he is about to go jetting off for Europe.

“What’s in the bag?” Tomihiko asks, but the man just rubs his beard and glares sourly off into space.

Tomihiko is whisked off to the Hachijō exit, where yet another editor is waiting. “Good to see you!” he says, as their driver, a man with a kindly smile who looks a bit like a monk, opens the door of a minivan. Tomihiko is stuffed inside, and the editors (who seem to be multiplying like wakame unfurling in a bowl of soup) pile in behind him, yammering like clams.

“What’s all the security in front of the station for, some hoity-toity celebrity?” “Oh, they’re all here for Morimi Tomihiko’s grand return to Kyoto.” chuckle “Wow, that was sooo funny.” “Hey! Don’t you mouth off to me!” “What did you expect? It was a terrible joke.” “You keep that up and you’ll regret it one day!” “Blabbity blah blah blah!” “Do you know, Morimi, on the train she ate a plum, _and _a banana, _and _on top of that a dorayaki. Can you believe that? Makes you wonder what her mother fed her as a child…” “You leave my mother out of this!” “She’s right! A healthy breakfast is important.” “Blimey, I don’t know how she packs it all away! She’s got a sweet tooth, or Bob’s my uncle!” “That’s a _terrible _fake accent.” “Sorry, guv!”

The raucous minivan arrives at Fushimi-inari Station, where a photographer awaits. She has the aura of an institution unto herself, like the classic novel Night on the Galactic Railroad; her antique camera is over seventy years old. Tomihiko has worked with her once before, and says, “It’s good to see you again. I’m looking forward to working with you today.”

“Come on,” says one of the editors. “Let’s grab lunch first.”

The group enters an udon shop on the road leading towards Fushimi Inari-taisha. The seat cushions look like they could make some good broth if you simmered them. Tomihiko has the wonton egg drop soup. It’s quiet inside the restaurant, and the smell of dashi lingers in the air. The road towards the shrine is still as quiet as it was when Tomihiko was a kid. His grandparents often used to take him to the shrine here from Osaka, hiking up the mountain to worship the god Mitsurugi. Twenty years have gone by, and his grandparents have passed on, but the tranquil atmosphere here remains the same.

They leave the wonton shop. The shops along the road sell fox ornaments and household shrines and candles. There are also fox masks on display, like the one from Tomihiko’s own Fox Tales, as well as lucky cats and _daruma _and Shigaraki-ware tanuki statues. Everything that you can find in his books, you can find on this street.

A chill suddenly enters the tranquil air as they begin to climb the mountain. The young Tomihiko used to peer at the moss-covered shrines which dot the path and quiver in fright at the fox statues, racing through the endless series of crimson torii under which they walk now. The day that Tomihiko took his college entrance exams, his father went up the mountain praying at each shrine for his success. Halfway through his pilgrimage he grew tired and started to go back down, only to realize halfway down that he had dropped his hat. Hastening back up to find it, he discovered it at the exact spot where he had cut his pilgrimage short, and needless to say decided it was best that he visit the rest of the shrines. Tomihiko passed his exams, and the rest is history.

The photographer’s shutter clicks as Tomihiko ambles through the shrine deep in reflection.The editors walk in a tight cluster like a pack of foxes basking in the sunshine that falls between the leaves, chattering good-naturedly to each other.

“What’s in that huge bag?” “I bet it’s for holding a bunch of chic souvenirs.” “Is it?” “You all keep asking about my bag, I’ll fold you up and put you in it!”

As this strange conversation plays out they return to the gate. It is only two in the afternoon, but it looks as if the sun is already going down. Tomihiko stifles a yawn.

Piling into the minivan, the group sets off for the heart of Kyoto. They drive down the street behind the Kyoto National Museum where Tomihiko was once a sushi delivery man, past the Gion Kaikan theater where Tomihiko once whiled half the day away watching double features, through Okazaki where Tomihiko often had ridden his wobbly bicycle. Making their way through the intricate alleyways they reach the Philosopher’s Walk. Tomihiko and his friend Akashi once tried and failed) to become a tourist attraction by publicly reading An Inquiry into the Good there. Today there are no imitators of that misbegotten experiment, and without any cherry blossoms to gawk at there are few people on the path. As they stroll along, Tomihiko thinks about dinner; one of the editors stops to pet a Shiba inu, and another does an imitation of some celebrity or other. The path towards philosophy is a treacherous one.

Evening is falling rapidly today in Kyoto. After coming out onto the bank of the Kamo River they stop on the Kōjin Bridge and gaze at the mountains to the north, and by the time they pass Gojōin where Kōjin is enshrined in the streets east of Kyoto Gyōen, it is already getting dark. It has only been a few hours since they arrived in Kyoto. As if to stave off their unease at the rapid approach of dusk, the editors mutter to each other about the wisdom of investing in real estate. At last Tomihiko completes the photo shoot in front of the long, creepy wall depicted in Fox Tales, and as if it has been holding its breath waiting for him to finish, night plops down over Kyoto.

“Oh crap, it’s dark. I can’t see a thing in these pitch-black alleys. Keep your eyes peeled for a long, grinning creature!”

“The only safe places are places with alcohol. We have to find one, quick.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

The group escapes the narrow stone alleys and enters a bar near the Demachi shopping arcade, in an old two-story building which apparently used to be an inn. There are many small rooms―probably guest rooms in a past life―but all of them are silent. Their room is the only one filled with light and noise and the feeling that they’re floating up into the sky. Tomihiko eats, drinks, and makes merry, but he remembers little of it. He only vaguely recalls enjoying himself. After a few rounds of beer, someone takes out a bottle of Faux Denki Bran they’d snuck in, and the party kicks off in earnest. At one point the editors started diving in and out of the giant travel bag which sat in the corner.

“What’s in the bag?” “Hehehhe” “Stuff a little more in there.” “Once I got so drunk I passed out in a bush in front of the office.” “Seriously?” “Are we holding a meeting” “I don’t wanna go back to Tokyo by myself!” “Were you making copies in your sleep?” “I’ll see you tomorrow at 8 in the hotel lobby, Morimi!” “I’ll go see you off too.” “I won’t.” “Why not?” “I have a chronic inability to wake up in the mornings.” “I’m going back to Tokyo.” “You understand that going back to Tokyo means going back to reality, right?” “Are you saying that Kyoto isn’t reality?” “Doctor’s orders, you see.” “You absolutely ninny!” “Not the accent again!” “I’m gonna black out.”

Where fact ended and fiction began that night, Morimi cannot say.

The next day dawns bright and clear. Morimi and one of the editors set out to the Eizan Railway Shūgakuin Station, where they meet up with the photographer. As the photographer takes pictures, children run by on their way to kindergarten, laughing and shouting.

Yase Station is only a short trip to the north.

The trees come right up to the back of the station, shimmering in the morning light. This far from the bustle of the city center, the air is cold and crisp. Tomihiko breathes the fresh air deep into his lungs as they walk to the cable car station. The cable cars go all the way to the top of Mount Hiei, though Tomihiko has never climbed the mountain himself. Near the station a narrow trail winds its way upward to a rifle shooting range. As a student Tomihiko sometimes snuck out from the range during matches to have a smoke in front of the cable car station.

Finishing the photo shoot there they return to Shūgakuin. The other editors are waiting there, having finally managed to get out of bed.

“Aren’t we missing someone?”

“Her chronic sleepiness is worse than ever, so I just folded her up and put her in my bag. I’m sorry for not getting up to see you this morning though. I actually woke up at 7, but it just took so long to shave. You know how water isn’t the same when you’re not at home? Like hard water, and soft water. My bristles were hard as iron, and I just didn’t want to let my appearance ruin your day…”

After strolling through Saginomori Shrine, they visit a traditional residence near Kansai Seminar House. As he walks along the earthen outer wall, Tomihiko gets the feeling that he’s ridden his bike here before. Perhaps that bike ride was his inspiration for Fox Tales, though he can’t be entirely sure. It’s possible that what he thinks were real memories are really scenes out of Fox Tales.

This feeling nettles Morimi from time to time. Sometimes he will reminisce over a memory from college, only to realize that it really comes from one of his books. Perhaps he might have brushed it off as the delusions of an idiot if it only happened to him, but his sensible friend Akashi has read his books and exclaimed, “I’d forgotten about that!” only to realize after thinking about it that it hadn’t happened at all. Even considering how their college days were spent teetering between delusion and reality, it is a vexing thing. There is a fine line between the two.

Tomihiko and company emerge from touring the old estate and the tearoom behind it, down another editor. “We lost another one,” Tomihiko mutters, but the rest of the coterie just march blithely on. Am I imagining things? he wonders, hurrying after them.

Lastly they come to Mount Yoshida.

During college, Mount Yoshida had seemed nearby yet faraway, simple yet strangely mysterious. As a student there were few opportunities to climb the mountain. Its proximity meant that no one really felt the urge to climb it, and then they’d graduate without ever having stepped foot on its slopes. Tomihiko was so fond of Shinnyo-dō to the southeast of the mountain that he used it in Ghost Stories. During his friendless first year at college, he’d eaten lunch alone at Munetada Shrine, near Yoshida Shrine. Yet he’d hardly spent any time at all walking on the mountain itself. Its slopes were criss-crossed with paths, including a few that lead down to Imadegawa Street and Kaguraoka Street. Tomihiko only became interested in Mount Yoshida after he had already graduated, and he is thinking of one day writing a horror novel set against the looming backdrop of the shadowy mountain.

From Kaguraoka Street the group ascends one of the slopes and enters a café at the top of Mount Yoshida. They eat lunch there, admiring the greenery outside. As he eats a slice of chiffon cake, Tomihiko begins to space out, imagining the story he is going to write. It involves a bald, middle-aged man who lives in a boarding house on the slopes of Mt. Yoshida, appearing all over the mountain and vanishing just as quickly as he arrives. As Tomihiko gazes out the window, he feels as though the man will come strolling through the trees at this very moment, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

His daydreaming continues for quite some time.

When he at last returns to reality, it is to find that his editors and the photographer are no longer sitting there with him. “That’s funny…where did they go?” he mutters, exiting the café.

Morimi Tomihiko wanders Mt. Yoshida alone. The others are nowhere to be found. The air is bereft of their bubbly conversation. The path winds onward through the lonely woods.

Tomihiko emerges from the trees at the rear of Takenaka-inari Shrine. Small, mysterious shrines dot the clearing. Branches sway in the breeze, and sunlight filters through the leaves; it feels as if he’s standing at the bottom of a shallow sea. From the shrine Mount Yoshida slopes downward, and beyond the houses of Kaguraoka and Jōdoji he can see Mount Daimonji amidst the mountains to the east.

The photographer is standing by herself, her camera fixed on him. Beside her on a large boulder basking in the sunlight is the oversized travel bag.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“They’ve already left.”

“What about the bag?”

Seeing Tomihiko’s bewildered expression, the photographer laughs. Click goes the camera shutter.

Tomihiko picks up the bag. Whatever’s inside is pretty heavy. Did the editor bring it from Tokyo, or did he buy it here in Kyoto? Full of apprehension, Tomihiko opens the bag and finds that it leads to a grey walkway; he can see the entrance to Nijubashimae Station on the Tokyo Metro. “A shortcut,” Tomihiko exclaims. “Now I get it!”

“I hope to see you in Kyoto again sometime,” said the photographer. “It’s been a pleasure working with you.”

Thus Tomihiko returns to Tokyo, where he sits now writing this essay.

To the Tomihiko in Kyoto, Tokyo is a delusion, so there is hardly anything strange about its existence transcending time and space and invading Kyoto. It’s just another twist in the story. But now that he has returned to this delusional version of Tokyo, what is this delusional version of Kyoto that he is imagining?