Well, it all started as another venture to explore the beautiful Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine (Shrine of 10,000 Torii). As James, Shannon and myself wandered through the thousands of orange Torii that went on for what seemed like miles (and would soon become) we soon found ourselves not surrounded by the familiar orange we had started walking through. The adventure had begun.
The whole group had set out by train to Inari Station to visit the Todaiji Temple and Fushimi Shrine. When we arrived we all set out on different paths, Shannon, James and I stuck together to explore the Torii paths. We soon found ourselves on a path that had no orange Torii and realized that we were lost in Japan. I'll pause for a brief laugh.
We could have turned around and found the beautiful orange Torii path we had been following for at least 45 minutes, but we ventured on believing the path would lead us back around to the Temple. We were wrong. We kept on our own path only to come across a neighborhood full of homes. We were definitely lost now. But, we trekked onward stopping by the nearest Japanese bystander to ask directions towards the train station. It seemed each person we asked pointed us in a different direction, but that might just have been our interpretation of their directions :) Anyways, we then found ourselves on a main road. We followed that parallel to the train tracks. Eventually, we asked a Japanese officer (who needed the assistance of a nearby student) for directions that had us backtrack a few blocks to the station. But, before we back tracked, on the corner where we were standing we could see Kyoto Tower. We had walked all the way to Kyoto! There is no telling how many miles we had actually walked, but we estimate at least 2-3 miles. With the help of the student we found the Tofukogi station (which is just one stop from Kyoto station where we switch trains to Otsu) and headed home.
What could have been easily frustrating for most people, we found humor and enjoyment in our adventure. Sometimes not knowing where you are going makes the trip that much more fun. At least I thought so ;)
Find a path and follow it, you never know where you will end up - Hunter
P.S. The video is posted on facebook of our travels. It is about 12 minutes of footage of a 2 hour hike...well worth taking a look at :)