Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社), 5-5-11 (alternate title: I Hope You Like Vermillion)

So, I had been completely struck by the beauty and splendor of Koya-San, such that I skipped over a lot of stuff to get it in the blog before the details faded. Hence, we are now flipping back to my visit to Fushimi Inari Shrine, which happened on May 5th. You may have no doubt seen pictures of the vermillion torii gates that can be found all over Japan:

The Inari shrines in particular are to worship the god of rice (who is named, incidentally, "Inari"). Ever since I'd seen a picture of a torii gate, and photos of Fushimi Inari Shrine, I knew I wanted to visit it - long before I was ever in Osaka. Fushimi Inari Shrine is the main Inari shrine and is also the largest. It's located in Kyoto, less than a three minute walk from JR Nara Line Inari Station. It took us about an hour and a half to get there from Suita, and that included at least 2 station changes, one of which included a fifteen minute walk from one station to the next. I am sure now that there is an easier way, as I've since gone to Kyoto with a group (who knew what they were doing), but at the time, it was learn-as-you-go. I had originally intended to go to Fushimi Inari solo, because I sort of wanted a break from being part of a group effort for everything. Nothing personal, to be sure, but I've got a bit of the loner spirit and sometimes I just don't want to worry about anyone else. Weeeellllll Meaghan said she'd always wanted to see the fox statues at Fushimi, and so I figured, what the hell. Meaghan's very easy to get along with and as long as I wasn't having to herd multiple people along, I figured it'd be fine.

Together, we braved the train stations and the confusing-as-hell map:

We eventually got to the right place. I hate the JR line with a passion because they use Kanji constantly and unlike most train stations, don't use furigana above the Kanji so those of us who can read Hiragana can at least get by. I mean, I'm not asking for English or anything, just Hiragana so I can pick up the Kanji I don't know. The worst part about this is the JR line goes to most touristy destinations, so you'd think they would be a little more accommodating, but noooo.

Anyway, Fushimi Inari shrine is quite beautiful:

Of course there is more shrine water:

And a sign explaining how to clean your hands and drink the water before entering the shrine (though I don't believe it's required). It's worth noting that the Japanese read from right to left, so the instructions begin on the right side:

As aforementioned, Inari is the God of rice, and there are many statues of foxes around the shrine. I was doing some reading and apparently many of the foxes have keys in their mouths, which are supposed to be keys to the rice granary. This fox has some sort of sphere in his mouth though. I can't find what the sphere represents, so I'm going to make something up; here's a statue of a fox someone was playing fetch with!

Main entrance to the shrine:

There were some shops there, and we did some light shopping. I picked up a glass bell with some fish painted on it that I liked the sound of. We decided to come back to the shops on the way down though, and started up into the shrine. The shrine itself is at the base of a mountain, but you climb quite a ways (via about 10,000,000 stairs) to a higher vantage point. The entire journey you're surrounded by thousands upon thousands of Torii gates. We began our ascent:

Here are some of the shots I like best from Fushimi:

(A path diverged in the woods and... we took the left one!)

There's more gates here than Bill Gates' family reunion! Or something. Anyway, as you can see one side of the gates is blank and the other side (the side you see when you head back down the mountain) has text on it. The gates are all donated by Japanese companies, and the text has the company names and sometimes a slogan (I believe) on it. But since it's Japanese writing, I'm sure to most foreigners it just looks neat (and because much of it is in Kanji, I'm one of those foreigners).

I'm sure it's hard to understand my hatred for Kanji, but let's do a little experiment, shall we? Grab a pencil and piece of paper and pull up a chair. Try to write the name of Fushimi Inari Shrine in standard-sized handwriting (I'll even make it bigger so it's easier to see):

伏見稲荷大社

Ok, have you given that a shot? Are you ready to commit honorable seppuku yet? Because I almost am, and all-in-all that Kanji is relatively simple compared to many others (for example, 料理, which means cooking, and makes me want to claw my eyes out because it takes about fifty tries for me to write it properly). Oh, and by the way, each individual Kanji has a thing called stroke order, which is the specific, proscribed order in which each line within a single character is to be written in. You can't just write it as you please, all willy-nilly with your Western-style individualism! That's insulting! Oh, and they CAN tell if it's not written in correct order. That said, I have been writing it a lot more lately and I think I'm getting better at it. At least the ones I use frequently. I have 私 (me, I) down!

Er... sorry about that little tangent. Anyway, the torii gates are quite pretty and brightly colored. The mountain air was cool and soothing, and the whole of the shrine is a pretty peaceful place. You need peaceful places. For meditation. And you need meditation because you spent half the day writing Kanji........

The path up the mountain is not a straight-away, and there are many diversions and split paths that one can take. We by no means saw the entirety of the shrine because it's quite large. The trek to the top took about two hours though, and we didn't take all the side paths that we could have. Along the way here and there were shops and restaurants, and I imagine there must be some kind of back-road because we did see a small truck there, tucked in among the torii gates:

One of the small mini-shrines had something called a "heavy-light stone." Here's how it works:

And the stone is pictured here on the pedestal in the middle:

Various shrine photos:

The scenery was also nice, although to be fair being from Texas, I am impressed by anything green:

More gates!

Obligatory shrine kitteh:

We finally did reach the top, and it was a bit of a foggy day unfortunately. We took a break and had some ice cream, and I got some shots of the "view:"

I snagged this pic off the internet though, of what the view looks like on a clear day:

Eventually, we headed back down and towards the station. We found a mall with some interesting signage:

And we had dinner at a Teppanyaki place, I have both a pic of dinner and a video, so you can hear and see it sizzling! It was basically just pork and veggies in a sweet and tangy sauce. Meaghan ordered something that was "spicy" but most spicy things in Japan fall flat, so she was surprised when it was actually REALLY spicy. Lesson learned!

And that's the day I spent in Kyoto, visiting Fushimi-Inari Taisho!

Koya-San, the mountain that stole my heart (among other things) - Part IV

The fourth and final installment of Koya-San (you can start here with Koya-San part 1 if you haven't read about this yet). I apologize for being so lax lately with the blog. It actually takes a couple of hours to publish a detailed post with a lot of photos, and so I kind of get busy or demotivated and don't want to deal with it. I also dont' like Blogger's photo uploading mechanism because no matter where you're at in the post, when you upload a photo, it appears at the very top of the post and so I have to go up to the top and cut the photo and paste it where I actually want it. It wouldn't be such a big deal except, as you know, my posts generally include a LOT of photos. That being said, I would like to get caught up so I will attempt to put some real effort into posting a bit more regularly.

Anyway, back to Koya-San. As I mentioned before, at Koya-San there is a mausoleum which is said to house Kobo Daishi, who has been in a state of eternal meditation since 835 AD. We had toured several of the shrines as well as Japan's largest cemetery (it's 2 kilometers from the entrance to the end) and had made it to Kobo Daishi's mausoleum. The monks take food to Kobo Daishi twice a day, and here is a photo of a monk preparing that food (I believe he is blessing it). We were specifically asked to not take pictures of the monk's faces, so I just got a shot from the back:

There were statues of gods (and goddesses, I assume) and beneath the statues was a basin with water and a ladle. I'm not really sure why, but the premise here was to scoop up some water with the ladle and toss it on the statues. We were told to splash the water on the statues' feet, but the Japanese were really getting into it and splashing water all over the statues. Anyway, here's a shot of A_Random_Japanese_Person01 splashing water on a statue:

Also, did I mention that Japan is pretty? Japan is pretty:

We went into the mausoleum, but I don't have any photos of that. Once again we were asked not to take any pictures. I really wish I could have because in the basement of the mausoleum were hundreds and hundreds of glowing lanterns. Actually, I've found a photo online that someone else took; it's doesn't really give you any scope or perspective on just how many lanterns were there, but just imagine this except HUNDREDS, lighting up a dark room:

So. Pretty.

So, I promised a video of a blonde hitting a gong, but actually there is a flat stone suspended between an arch sort-of-thing, and you hit it with a mallet for good luck or somesuch. The video that I had isn't as long as I thought, but you can get the point from it I think. Here's Kathryne hitting the stone:

Near the mausoleum grounds is an area where companies have donated statues in honor of the dead, or as promises of peace, or to honor their workers, etc. It's very strange because the area sort of looks like a cemetery also, but instead of tombstones, there are stones denoting names of companies like NISSAN or Panasonic, etc.

And then, inexplicably, a rocket (something about space?):

We finished out our tour and Kathryne, Lindzi and I celebrated with ice cream. We then boarded our fuchsia bus and headed back to the main parking area, where we were dropped off for 3 hours of free time. We headed into the town and did some shopping and had lunch at a restaurant. I think by this point I was weary of taking pictures of everything because I don't have a single picture of this part of the trip. I was tired, too, so after a bit of shopping, I headed back to the bus to relax. On the way there, I ran into Koya-San's mascot, Koya-Kun:

He was taking pictures with kids and holding their hands. When it came to have a picture taken with me on the other hand, he made this face (edited myself out, muahahaha):

So cute!

I went back to the bus and enjoyed a milk I'd picked up from a konbini (<3 Japanese milk <3):

Then we started the ride back down the mountain, which I can only describe as harrowing. The way buses work is that in order to turn, the driver had to take the bus almost to the complete edge of the road and then swing it either right or left; it was especially important on this narrow road with these sharp turns that the driver take the bus out as far as possible in order to make the turn. I was sitting in the second row of seats, so I had a clear view out the front windshield, and to me, each and every time, it felt like he was going to drive the damn bus over a cliff. I am ashamed to say it, but I was completely terrified the whole way down. I tried to distract myself by attempting to get some scenery shots, but from a moving vehicle that's not so easy. Still, here's some of the less-crappy shots I got:

We all made it back alive, obviously. Overall, the trip was really great and is probably one of the highlights of my time here in Japan. I am so glad I went to Koya-San, and if you're in Japan and get a chance to do the same, you should too.