TIFU by mistaking someone’s house for a temple and making myself at home on the front porch

Obligatory not today obviously. This actually happened a few years ago when I was living in japan. As I was in the early years of me living there, I didn’t 100% know how to distinguish certain buildings. There were a lot of small temples around and shrines, and I had gotten used to them looking a certain way. Well, I took a day trip to Kyoto to wander around, see the sights, and find smaller more out of the way interesting places. At the time, I hadn’t yet bought a smartphone. It takes a lot of time out of a day to try and sit down with a company and get a contract signed and whatnot, so I hadn’t bothered. Instead, I had a basic City map from the main station and a one day bus pass and just settled in to getting lost. I got into a slightly hilly area near one of the major temples, and I saw a few signs on the map for shrines or temples for smaller locations. So, I set out to wander in the direction of one. Now here’s the fuck up. I suck at reading maps. Really suck. I have a general sense of how they go, but the whole orienting the north part upwards and then tracing where you’re going otherwise really doesn’t work for me. I have to put the map at an angle with the direction in front of me upwards. So, I’m trying my best to wander around in search of small temples and I see a long narrow road leading up a hill in front of me and various signs in japanese. It looks promising, so I follow this narrow road thinking cool mountain Temple! At the end of this road, I found an ancient building. Very traditional looking with gorgeous wood and Clay roof tiles. This seemed really promising. Of course there doesn’t seem to be anyone around, but that’s fairly far for the course in the middle of the day in a location that is not the most popular or well known. There was however a deck with a few stairs up to it on the outside of the building and it had a great view of the city. I sat down and pulled out my journal just so that I could start a little bit of writing. I got lost in it but was startled when I was approached from behind by an older woman. She looked rather puzzled, but held out a teacup towards me. That’s when I realized that she was not dressed as Temple staff but was wearing a normal house dress and we opened door behind her look like a normal house interior. I had accidentally found my way up somebody’s very long driveway to a very traditional antique house and was sitting on their porch. Fortunately for me, the woman just seemed mildly amused and confused at the Foreigner on her steps.

TLDR: got lost in Kyoto, ended up mistaking a person’s house for a temple and being served tea by a confused housewife