016. A night with a Murder Hornet, and other tales from Kyoto
Kyoto will forever now be a story of two halves. On one side you have the intoxicating old buildings, winding streets, and impressive shrines and temples. On the other, we will be haunted by our brush with a Giant Asian Hornet, a dank side street AirBnB, and for my part, a nasty (albeit mercifully brief, in the scheme of things) sinus infection.
To cover off the bad vibes at the top;
our first AirBnB came complete with a Giant Asian Hornet, that we found after getting back from dinner on the first night. At first, we didn’t realise entirely how awful these guys are, Kes trapped it in a glass, and we made the mistake of releasing it outside the back door….where it point blank refused to leave for 24h. This would be fine, except the bathroom was outside - directly behind Mr Hornet. Needless to say, we left.
the second AirBnB was charming, in theory, but dank in practice. Kes talked of there being “something evil” in the bathroom. I got pretty sick. We left again.
in and amongst this, someone fed me a chicken burrito (by accident, they mixed the orders, and gave it to me as “the vegetarian one”). I got two bites in, and tried to be more chill about the whole thing than really I was.
On to good things, Kyoto was beautiful! As charming as you’d imagine. Very, very Japan. Old lovely buildings and winding back alleys where we caught glimpses of real-life geisha. Big old temples everywhere, and a concentrated city centre, which left the outskirts feeling more like actual neighbourhoods than Osaka.
We climbed to the very top of Fushimi Inari Taisha (on a very sweaty day), took a (different) day trip out to Nara, witnessed a minor deer stampede and spent the afternoon bowing at deer.
We ate some terrible food, and some great food. Two weeks in, vegetarian food remains challenging. We saw Mario, and were briefly samurai.
All in all, great experiences, the most beautiful place, but as I say at the top, a tricky one to reconcile. Travelling, I guess!
