I've come to Kamakura with the company staff on invitation from an estate. We are totally disoriented and separate, all asking the way as we wander along a wide, highway-like road, lost. The estate is in underground mall. I seem to be the only one to have reached it. I am shown into the drawing room and an elderly woman, apparently the lady of the house, brings me lunch. It consists of a rice-bowl dish and clear soup. The soup is in a shallow ceramic bowl that has a finely woven rattan vessel attached to it. It is filled to the brim. When I pick it up, the soup spills out from the rattan bit and wets the table.
I bid her farewell, and depart. I step out of the basement straight to ground leveland have no sense of direction. I start walking and come to the famous Kamakura tourist spot, "Toro." Entering requires a further descent into a hole from the underground mall. It is supposed to be like touring the womb. I do not go in. I try going back up to ground level and find myself in the same place as before. My eyes rove restlessly. Outside the far exit is an expanse ofcoastline. "I can't go that way," I think, "I'm trying to get home!" I ascend from the other exit where there is a giant statue of Kannon and a wedding in session. The place is swarming with people, curiously, all middle-aged women. I follow behind as they set off for home. One woman gets down on all fours in the narrow exit of a brick wall to tie her shoelace. She goes on endlessly, and no one can pass. The others reprimand her and she finally gets up. I pass between them and hurriedly head toward the station. I want to get home, but have completely lost my bearings. I am at my wit's end.