The Kyoto no one photographs

You are supposed to arrive in Kyoto during sakura or momiji, when the city performs itself. I arrived in the thin week between — no blossoms, no leaves — and the city, unrehearsed, turned out to be better.

North of the Kamo River

The wards above Imadegawa are where Kyoto stops posing. There’s a coffee roaster on Teramachi that opens whenever the owner is finished with his run. There’s a bookshop with a cat asleep on the poetry shelf.

The point of a temple in the off-season is that you can hear the wood settle.

I ate a bowl of nishin soba at a counter that seats six. The owner asked where I was from and, when I said I lived nowhere in particular, nodded like this was a reasonable job.