Tokyo is presented through specific districts, hotels, and glimpses of its skyline rather than as a comprehensive city portrait. It is where Kawashima first meets Yoko at a Ginza gallery and later checks into a central hotel; the city also becomes the setting for his calculations about anonymity and concealment. Against these urban scenes, his home in nearby Kokubunji offers a temporary distance from the sleeping baby and the fear that drives him out into the night.

Districts and Encounters

Six years before the main hotel episode, Kawashima and Yoko meet at an art gallery in Ginza during an exhibition by Nicolas de Staël. It is a Saturday afternoon, but they are the only visitors. Yoko opens the conversation by asking whether Kawashima is an artist; he has a sketchbook under his arm. The quiet, nearly empty gallery makes their first meeting a small and private beginning within the city.

Tokyo’s geography also marks the boundary between domestic unease and temporary escape. Kawashima leaves the apartment building where he and Yoko live, carefully locks the door, and steps onto an empty street in their Kokubunji neighbourhood. Away from the room where the baby is sleeping, he feels some relief. The contrast is pointed: the city is not simply a destination, but a route out of the immediate pressure of home.

Hotels and Concealment

Four days after the preceding events, Kawashima checks into the Akasaka Prince Hotel shortly after noon. He uses his own JCB card and registers under his real name, taking a twin room reserved for a week, with a distant view of Tokyo Tower. The stay is presented as a work-related vacation: he has won a jazz festival account, secured his firm’s approval, and received nearly nine hundred thousand yen for expenses. He calls Yoko soon after checking in, while the sounds of her work reach him over the phone.

The hotel room gives Kawashima both privacy and a vantage over the city. As dusk settles, he considers how much he has changed since leaving his former life, returning to school, drawing again, finding work, and marrying Yoko. Yet the view of the city does not resolve his uncertainty about whether his former or present self is the more authentic one. Tokyo becomes the setting for that uneasy division, as well as for the plan he is developing.

In his notes, Kawashima considers hotels in West Shinjuku, including the Park Hyatt, the Century Hyatt, the Washington, the Hilton, and the Keio Plaza. He intends to reserve rooms under different names, inspect them, and choose the hotel with the busiest front desk and poorest service, reasoning that inattentive staff would focus less on guests. His attention to the hotels’ differing conditions turns the city into a field of practical choices: anonymity is not assumed, but pursued through careful selection.

The City as View and Strategy

Tokyo appears both as a distant image and as an environment Kawashima tries to manage. From his room, he sees Tokyo Tower and the city settling into dusk; in his planning, he weighs hotel locations, guest traffic, and the likelihood of being noticed. The movement between skyline and logistical detail gives the city two functions: it is a visible panorama beyond the hotel window and a network of places whose ordinary routines might help conceal a guest.

The account does not present Tokyo as a refuge that can make Kawashima’s conflicting selves disappear. He is able to leave the apartment and find distance from the sleeping baby, but his thoughts and plans follow him into the hotel room. The city’s galleries, streets, and hotels therefore anchor different phases of his life while underscoring the tension between an outwardly conventional existence and the secret purpose he is preparing to pursue.