Japan Trip Day 3: Fushimi Inari Shrine

Well hello there. This is a slightly drenched Tenchi reporting from Tokyo. While my husband watches the last bit of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (in English) I thought I might do a little bit of blogging. XD Sorry for being very late with all these posts. On to Day 3: Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Almost to Fushimi Inari Shrine. Or what I would like to call The Day of the Stairs.

Shopping leading up to Fushimi Inari Shrine. Fushimi Inari Shrine is one of the biggest/important Shinto shrines in Japan. And by biggest I mean....up a mountain and a great view of the city of Kyoto. There were tons of visitors on the day we went but it wasn't as crowded as I thought it was going to be.

Official entrance to the shrine. All these orange gates are called toriis and there are literally thousands of them all over the mountain. Most form little tunnels one walks under.

This is where the charms and protective items are sold. Most shrines have a place to sell such things but this has been the biggest one I have seen so far. Bought a driving protection sticker. XD

Lots of mini shrines all over the place. They are all dedicated to Inari who is the god of rice. And since Japanese people love their rice he is a very important god. Foxes are the messengers for Inari thus all the foxes everywhere.

Beginning of our long journey. First official torii on the route. Found some nice people to take our picture in front of the big torii.

View from inside the first path. Looks nice and lovely at first, just a normal path.

All the torii are donated by rich business men. I wonder how much each one costs.

I am pretty sure the donators names are written write here. I could be wrong though.

A place where you can draw a little fox face and leave it at the shrine.

If you go off the normal path there are other shrines not listed in the main route. However they are not as well maintained. I thought they looked kinda cool and creepy.

One could purchase little toriis and have their names written on them. Then you could leave it around any shrine of your choosing.

Little break area near a pond. Would have been a nice break area had the overwhelming smell of incense hadn't taken over.

View from the "top". There was still more top and this had a better view. And this point I nearly had died. Old ladies were passing me on the stairs. Stairs that were not even and falling apart and mog save me lord. Thank goodness this place had ice cream or I would have passed out. BRING FOOD AND WATER WITH YOU ON THIS TRIP!

More of the shrine. Feeling better since there were noms in my tummy.

There were several little shops on the way where one could buy tiny offerings for the god. Me I rather keep stuff as a souvenir. XD

Almost near the bottom!! WOOHOO Thank you lord I am alive. This way had different shrines and this one was to a froggie.

After recovering in our hotel room we decided to explode a little more. Only we quickly learned that streets are not what they seem. Some are "not important" thus are not on any maps. Some streets have no English and the ones that did weren't on our maps. And them some maps didn't even HAVE streets on it, let alone the names. So thus began our 65 minutes of being utterly lost in Kyoto.

Perhaps if we had a bike like most of the Japanese people we would have been alright. But since I have not mastered weaving in and out of real traffic and people traffic I think it was safer to walk.

And thus ends my Day 3 Japan Trip post. Please stay tuned for more (as it is going to rain more :( poo). Thanks for stopping by!