Kyoto Ghost Taxi

The Night

Every taxi driver in Kyoto knows the story.

A woman flags you down near Midorogaike after dark. She gives you an address. You drive. When you check the mirror, the back seat is empty — and wet.

We take you to that pond. In a taxi. At night. Then we keep going, to the places in Kyoto that people avoid rather than visit.

Where We Go

• Midorogaike — an ice-age pond with floating islands, protected and largely unchanged for thousands of years, and the source of Japan's best-known ghost-taxi legend.
• Seimei Shrine — built on the home of Abe no Seimei, the Heian court's onmyōji: diviner, exorcist, and the man Kyoto sent for when something needed banishing.
• Kiyotaki Tunnel — a single-lane tunnel in the hills above Sagano with a traffic signal at its mouth and a reputation that has followed it since the day it was dug. Not somewhere you reach on foot.
• We finish at Saga-Arashiyama Station.

At every stop you get out of the car. Your guide tells you what is in the record and what has only ever been whispered — and where the line between the two actually falls.

Questions People Ask