I had found the waterfall. It was the highlight of my trip to Kyoto. It had taken too long, though. My phone was quickly dying, as the sun sank lower in the sky. I tried to remember the path back to the main road. I tried to call to mind the location of the nearest subway.
Seven percent battery.
I crossed the same decaying log three times. How it didn’t disintegrate beneath me, I don’t know. I sat on the ground and thought of jumping into the stream below. Who would find my body in this remote place? Would it be a hiker? Perhaps another tourist intent on catching sight of the mystical waterfall described in the blog post I’d found? I climbed and desperately sought new routes.
Somehow, I found the road again and wandered it for an hour before the little subway stop came into view. Hours later, I lay crying on an uncomfortable bunk bed in a hostel. I shivered despite the heat. I tried to look up the blog post to see where I’d gone wrong.
And it’s the craziest thing, but the post wasn’t there. It had been taken down.
-Amanda
Spiders In My Bathtub 