Living in Hokkaido is a land of contradictions. I came here expecting to see temples on every street corner, and people living in houses erected in the traditional Japanese style of architecture. Needless to say to anyone who has read my musings over the last year, this is not quite the case here. Hokkaido is a lot more Westernized than the rest of Japan, and while traditional Japanese culture lingers on, it is not as evident as it is in, say, Kyoto.
This is why I was so excited to visit Kyoto and actually experience the true Japanese culture that everyone raves about. Kinkaku-ji, San-ju-san-gendo, geishas; get ready, Kyoto, because I'm coming for you!
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| Samara and I in front of a (very crowded) path of torii |
There is one vision that lingers in everyone's mind, though, when discussing Kyoto, and that is the iconic look of Fushimi Inari Shrine, where the hundreds upon hundreds of red torii are lined up next to each other, forming walking paths that go on for more than 4 kilometres. Needless to say, this was at the top of my itinerary.
I woke up late my second day in Kyoto, admittedly a little (okay, a lot) hungover from the 4 am outing the night before with my friend Samara, who I had run into at the hostel. Jessica was not in the mood to wait for me to get up, so she scampered off by herself to do arts and crafts down the street. Left to my own devices, I called up the equally hungover Samara and her friend Kelly, and we decided to make the trek down to Fushimi Inari for some sightseeing.
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| Look, we made it to the train station! |
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We hopped on the train we hoped would take us there, and began the long walk up to the shrine in the blistering Kyoto heat. The area was packed with sightseers, as we were visiting during Golden Week, one of the busiest times of the year for Japanese sightseeing. We walked and walked, past little stalls and other goodies, until we finally came to the main shrine area.
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| So packed, guys. |
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| Main Shrine |
Fushimi Inari is not just one shrine, but a collection of five, I believe, all intricately linked together by the series of torii that you see in all the brochures for Japan. The mountain on which they are placed, Inari, was named after a Shinto God that was worshiped for wealth in the Shinto religion, and all of the torii were donated by merchants or businesses in the hope that donating a torii would bring them prosperity. The earliest structures were built in 711, but the main shrine was not built until 1499.
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| Inscriptions by the businesses that donated the torii. |
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Also, completely unrelated, the wiki for the shrine is also written in Esperanto. Fun Facts!
Anyway, as I mentioned, there are more than 4 kilometres comprising thousands and thousands of bright red torii, and we walked the entire thing up to the top of the mountain, where we saw a wonderful view of Kyoto in all its majesty. There isn't much else to say about the shrine itself, so I will let the photos speak for themselves.
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| We were taking a picture of the torii and these guys randomly walked through and made this face. |
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| Look at me! look at me! |
So there you have it. Jeri dragged her hungover butt through 4k of torii to the top of a mountain and all you got was this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it.
