Shimamura The Shimizu Tunnel
Chapter 1
The novel opens on the night train from Tokyo as it runs through a long tunnel under the ridge and emerges into the snow country beyond. The passage is the Shimizu Tunnel, the single-track bore that in the 1930s carried the line north into deep-snow Niigata; the prefecture boundary sits inside it.
Chapter 1
explicit The long border tunnel the train passes through is the real Shimizu Tunnel, opened in 1931 on the Joetsu Line beneath the mountains between Gunma and Niigata; this marks its published location on the prefecture border, south of the onsen town.
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Shimamura Echigo-Yuzawa Station
Chapter 1
The train slows and stops at the snow-country station where Shimamura arrives for his stay. In the town this is Echigo-Yuzawa, the gateway to the onsen, its platform lit against the drifts and the cold pouring in when the doors open.
Chapter 1
explicit The signal stop where the train halts at the start of the book is the real Echigo-Yuzawa Station in Yuzawa, Niigata; coordinates from the station record.
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Shimamura Yuzawa hot-spring town
Chapter 1
The affair with the geisha Komako plays out across a hot-spring town of steaming baths, wooden inns and snow-heaped streets. Kawabata built it from Yuzawa, the Niigata onsen where he stayed; its springs and lodging houses are the everyday setting for Shimamura's visits from Tokyo.
Chapters 1-3
explicit The onsen town of the novel is drawn from the real Yuzawa hot springs; this marks the town centre rather than one bathhouse, since the book moves across several inns and baths.
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