I had just moved to Kyoto, and was staying in the ISE foreigner's dormitory while I tried to find a more permanent place; ISE was a pit of a dorm with very nice strangers all playing nicely. In fact, I understand that Pico Iyer wrote "The Lady and the Monk" while staying there. But a friendly American couple who lived over the hill in Kujo-yama saw the shabby, oily room I was in, and insisted that I say with them in their old, three-storey house, no rent, no nothing, until I could find my own apartment.
Kujo-yama is out on the trolley line that runs out of San-jo, up the hill, past the Int'l Community Center, and into a suburban portion of Kyoto city. Most of the places are quite old. My friends' place was probably between 50 and 100 years old, and in mediocre condition. It had a cesstank for its sewage, but I think it had regular gas lines. Old place. It was built on a hill (very near the trolley tracks) so the ground entrance was on the 2nd floor, with a stairway up to the bedroom, and a stairway down to the kitchen, which had a door leading to a pantry, which in turn led to a laundry/bath area.
I was given a shoji-separated side room, just off the center of the 2nd floor. The walls were a little dirty, and had children's writing and drawings all over them. The hill caused a slight sag in the house, so the sliding doors didn't entirely fit perfectly. There was always a gap at the top of the door, when the bottom of it was butted against the frame. For some reason, this all acted together to give my niche a creepy feeling.
Downstairs, there was the kitchen, which was bright, clean and charming. It had been the target of a successful remodel, and was the nicest room in the house. On the other hand, passing through the door into the pantry, immediately I could feel a contrast. The pantry was dark. It was just dark, bare wood, and an archway leading into the laundry area. Whenever I went into the pantry, I felt like I was being, well, not just watched, but stared at. Glared at, even. Then, stepping through to the laundry/bath area, the feeling was gone.
I stayed there for a few weeks, always feeling vaguely creeped out in bed, and always feeling watched when going through the pantry. Weird thing is how entirely different the kitchen felt; it was so much nicer than the pantry! Though honestly, it could have been the homemade waffles and pizzas that my friends were always cooking there, or the Pyramid Ales they always seemed to have on hand.
So that's my ghost story. What's that? There's no ghost, just a creepy feeling? Okay, well, the weird bit is this:
I started to tell this story that night, in the carfull of teachers that I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread. I got no further than the location, Kujo-yama, when one of the teachers interrupted me, and asked if it was the three-storey place just down from the station. I told him it was. He said, "That place was for rent earlier," this was true; my friends had just moved there when they invited me to stay with them.
"I went to check it out because the rent was cheap there, but when I got to the house, the genkan was locked, and I couldn't see in. I walked down the hillside, along the side of the house to the corner. I started across the wall of the house, but halfway across, something really freaked me out. I don't know what it was, but it felt horrible. I lost it, and RAN all the way back to the station."
I hadn't told anything about my experiences in the pantry, but the room was exactly halfway across the lowest storey; exactly where he described the weirdness.
"That's not all," he said, "I told one of my students that I was looking for a place to rent, and mentioned that I went to go look at a three-storey place in Kujo-yama. She described the place, and I was surprised that she'd take any notice of it. She said that she has to ride the trolley in front of it and so she holds her breath whenever she rides by."
My friends claimed I was imagining things, and that they couldn't feel anything weird. But at least three people felt something very strange there, two of us in the same spot, without having anything in common other than the house.
Getting corroborating stories from that teacher just made me feel more creeped out.
Kujo-yama is out on the trolley line that runs out of San-jo, up the hill, past the Int'l Community Center, and into a suburban portion of Kyoto city. Most of the places are quite old. My friends' place was probably between 50 and 100 years old, and in mediocre condition. It had a cesstank for its sewage, but I think it had regular gas lines. Old place. It was built on a hill (very near the trolley tracks) so the ground entrance was on the 2nd floor, with a stairway up to the bedroom, and a stairway down to the kitchen, which had a door leading to a pantry, which in turn led to a laundry/bath area.
I was given a shoji-separated side room, just off the center of the 2nd floor. The walls were a little dirty, and had children's writing and drawings all over them. The hill caused a slight sag in the house, so the sliding doors didn't entirely fit perfectly. There was always a gap at the top of the door, when the bottom of it was butted against the frame. For some reason, this all acted together to give my niche a creepy feeling.
Downstairs, there was the kitchen, which was bright, clean and charming. It had been the target of a successful remodel, and was the nicest room in the house. On the other hand, passing through the door into the pantry, immediately I could feel a contrast. The pantry was dark. It was just dark, bare wood, and an archway leading into the laundry area. Whenever I went into the pantry, I felt like I was being, well, not just watched, but stared at. Glared at, even. Then, stepping through to the laundry/bath area, the feeling was gone.
I stayed there for a few weeks, always feeling vaguely creeped out in bed, and always feeling watched when going through the pantry. Weird thing is how entirely different the kitchen felt; it was so much nicer than the pantry! Though honestly, it could have been the homemade waffles and pizzas that my friends were always cooking there, or the Pyramid Ales they always seemed to have on hand.
So that's my ghost story. What's that? There's no ghost, just a creepy feeling? Okay, well, the weird bit is this:
I started to tell this story that night, in the carfull of teachers that I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread. I got no further than the location, Kujo-yama, when one of the teachers interrupted me, and asked if it was the three-storey place just down from the station. I told him it was. He said, "That place was for rent earlier," this was true; my friends had just moved there when they invited me to stay with them.
"I went to check it out because the rent was cheap there, but when I got to the house, the genkan was locked, and I couldn't see in. I walked down the hillside, along the side of the house to the corner. I started across the wall of the house, but halfway across, something really freaked me out. I don't know what it was, but it felt horrible. I lost it, and RAN all the way back to the station."
I hadn't told anything about my experiences in the pantry, but the room was exactly halfway across the lowest storey; exactly where he described the weirdness.
"That's not all," he said, "I told one of my students that I was looking for a place to rent, and mentioned that I went to go look at a three-storey place in Kujo-yama. She described the place, and I was surprised that she'd take any notice of it. She said that she has to ride the trolley in front of it and so she holds her breath whenever she rides by."
My friends claimed I was imagining things, and that they couldn't feel anything weird. But at least three people felt something very strange there, two of us in the same spot, without having anything in common other than the house.
Getting corroborating stories from that teacher just made me feel more creeped out.
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