Norwegian Wood: Murakami's Tokyo

Watanabe moves into a student dormitory and shares a room with a roommate nicknamed Storm Trooper, who is obsessed with cleanliness and studies cartography. Here he also strikes up a friendship with Nagasawa, a charismatic fellow resident, over a shared love of The Great Gatsby. The novel's dormitory is invented, but it is modeled on Wakeijuku, the all-male hostel in Mejirodai where Murakami himself lived from April 1968. Waseda University's guide to the novel notes that Wakeijuku's south dormitory looks the same as it did in his day.

Location precision: The novel's dormitory is invented; the pin marks Wakeijuku, the real hostel it is modeled on.

In May 1968 Watanabe and Naoko meet by chance on a Chūō line train. What follows is the first of many long walks: one Sunday afternoon they cover the city on foot, to Iidabashi and on to Komagome. Waseda University's guide names the Iidabashi moat as the place where they walked. The two keep walking together on Sundays, growing closer. Iidabashi Station still sits inside the Outer Moat.

Location precision: The walk crosses many streets; the pin marks Iidabashi, the moat stop named by Waseda University's guide.

Visitor guidance: Iidabashi Station sits on the inside of the Outer Moat, a natural place to start your own walk.

Naoko attends a women's college in the Musashino area and lives alone in an apartment in Kokubunji, further out along the Chūō line. After the chance meeting the two begin to see each other on their days off. On the night of her 20th birthday they become intimate; soon afterwards she is gone, and writes that she has to leave college and stay at a sanatorium.

Location precision: The novel names only the suburb of Kokubunji, not a street; the pin marks Kokubunji Station.

At his unnamed private university Watanabe studies drama. In the class History of Theater II he is befriended by Midori Kobayashi, outgoing, vivacious and supremely self-confident, in other words everything Naoko is not. Around them students go on strike, then abruptly end it. The campus is modeled on Waseda University, where Murakami entered the drama course in 1968. Waseda's guide says that Building 2, the former library where Watanabe spends his days, now houses the Aizu Museum.

Location precision: The novel never names the university; the pin marks Waseda University, the campus it is modeled on.

Visitor guidance: Waseda's former library, Building 2, now houses the Aizu Museum.

To visit Midori at home, Watanabe takes the Toden Arakawa streetcar, as Waseda University's guide points out. In the novel he rides to near Ōtsuka Station, sits in the last seat and watches ancient houses slide past close to the window, as the tram snakes through a private back-alley world. Midori and her sister run a small bookstore for their absent father. Most Tokyo streetcars were phased out between 1968 and 1972; this line is the sole survivor of the old network.

Location precision: The novel doesn't pin down the bookstore; the pin marks the Ōtsuka-ekimae tram stop, near the station Watanabe rides to.

Visitor guidance: The Toden Arakawa Line still runs; Ōtsuka-ekimae is one of its stops in Toshima.

In 1970 Watanabe leaves the dormitory and rents a house on the outskirts of Kichijōji. He moves without telling Midori. Months later, after Naoko's death, Reiko, Naoko's older friend from the sanatorium, comes to stay with him, and the two hold an informal memorial service for Naoko on his rooftop. Kichijōji is 14 minutes from Shinjuku by rapid train.

Location precision: The novel says only that the house lies on the outskirts of Kichijōji; the pin marks Kichijōji Station.

Visitor guidance: Kichijōji Station is 14 minutes from Shinjuku on the Chūō Line rapid.

The next day Watanabe takes Reiko to Ueno Station, where she boards a train for Asahikawa in the north; Ueno was long the traditional gateway for journeys to northern Japan. Then he phones Midori and declares his love for her. She asks, "Where are you now?" and the novel ends with Watanabe pondering that question. Today it is also the station for reaching Ueno Park.

Visitor guidance: Ueno Station is a working station and the stop for Ueno Park.