Fushimi shrine

The entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine

The weather was not looking too promising but we felt that this should not prevent us doing some sightseeing. On a recent trip to Kyoto two of Liz's JET colleagues had visited a shrine on the outskirts of Kyoto and they had recommended it as a must see place. To get there we had to take a local train from Kyoto to the Fushimi Inari Taisha station. This would be our first trip on a local train, another new experience but as we had our train passes it meant that the trip cost us nothing.

The entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine

The shrine is probably the most famous of about 40,000 shrines dedicated to Inari, the deity of rice and saki, and lies close to the sake-making district of Fushimi. What makes this shrine so different is some ten thousand Torii gate that mark out the pathways and avenues around the shrine. The majority of the gates were donated by the faithful who would come here to pray for prosperity. The shrine, founded in 711, also features many statues of foxes, the messengers of the Inari Taisho shrine.

The map of the Fushimi Inari Shrine

The shrine was only one minute's walk from from the station. This was to lull us into a false sense of ease and take our mind from the trials to come. The first part of the shrine was reasonably flat. We wandered around the jinja shrines, temizuya water trough, shinden sanctuary, saisenbako offering box and shamusho offices. It was still quite early and with the threat of rain meant there were very few people about.

The tour guide had indicated there was an extensive series of pathways, many lined with the gates. It was not until we saw the map at the entrance that we realised just how vast the pathways were and how high the climb was.

It was difficult to miss the fox as they appeared all around the place, mainly in pairs, with various items in their mouths including balls, scrolls and keys. Two large statues stand at the entrance one of which looks like it has a fur tail in its mouth. They were everywhere.

An ancient shrine - slightly foxed

Around the back of one of the buildings I discovered a small open building where a number of kimono clad ladies were preparing their instruments - a Koto , a 13 string zither, and two Shamisen , a three string lute.

The journey begins

For more information about Japanese musical instruments check out Japan-Guide.com. There were a number of people arriving and being shown to Western style seats. An official noticed me and indicated I should depart and not take pictures. Unfortunately the images are memories which cannot be put on film.

We now made our way to the pathways. At first the climb was gentle with the occasional steeper section of a ten metres or so. The path wove and meandered its way and then split into two. Now things were getting complicated. I certainly believe (in hindsight) that the shrine would make the perfect place to host the world orienteering championships.

Did anyone see which way the white rabbit went?

The Torii are made up of two posts capped by two crossbars the upper one being black and having a jaunty upward curve at the ends, and they are orange. The uprights are about 50 centimetres in diameter, some larger, and about 50 centimetres apart. As we walked along the path the orange became overwhelming. I do not suffer from claustrophobia but I came close to understanding those that do while walking these pathways. I started to feel like I was in a hall of mirrors, everywhere I looked appeared the same with the reflections going to infinity.

We made it to the first level. Unfortunately our daughter, Elizabeth, suffers from asthma and the prospect of the next, far steeper, section meant she was reluctant to continue. She found a suitable place to sit down and buried herself in her latest book.

Views of the pathways and the ever-present Torii

It was not a relentless journey upward. Intersperced between the pathways were collections of family shrine whihc allowed us to rest and get our breathes. it was obvious from their condition that they were reguarly visited and looked after.

One of the family shrines

As the example shows here the majority of these shrines features statues of foxes and even small representations of toriis. Most of the foxes were wearing bibs, normally red. I'm unsure why the left hand fox statue has a bib showing Little Kitty with the flags of America, the UK, Greece and others. Were they hoping for travel or the protection of loved ones overseas?

At one point we reached a couple of shops, a souvenir shop and a restaurant. On the map shown above our stopping place was the building shown at the top left of the map. Here we paused for a while and our resolve finally evaporated as we stared upwards towards the final goal. We looked at each other and decided we could not under any circumstances leave Elizabeth alone any longer. So we decided to return, downwards.

A fox with attitude

The last image is another fox. This one attracted me greatly. It had life, vitality and quite a bit of humour.

For our last evening in Kyoto we went shopping. One of the attractions of Kyoto, according to my daughter, is that Kyoto has a bookshop that sells English language books. Maruzen bookshop . I took the opportunity to pick up a few Japanese books, one on Kanji, one on verbs and a set of Kanji flash cards. My daughter took the opportunity of my being there with my credit card to buy a new library of English novels. Afterwards we visited a wonderful Tai restaurant close to the bookshop. Here we enjoyed some spicy food, something we had missed since leaving England.

Tomorrow we would be moving on, going north to Nikko via Tokyo.