I see Red! - Fushimi Inari Shrine

It was a typical winters day in Kyoto. Blue sky, sunshine and crisp cold air. A perfect day for visiting Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Those of you who have seen the movie 'Memoirs of a Geisha' will recall a scene where the young Sayuri runs through a series of red Torii gates. Well this is the place.

With over 10,000 Torii gates forming unique tunnels, you can easily lose track of time as you explore the grounds. The Torii gates are primarily donated by businesses for good luck with the names of the businesses written on the back of the gates.

The shrine is a Shinto shrine and Inari is the Japanese God for fertility, farming, industry and rice. The God is often represented by a fox which is why there are Fox statues found throughout the shrine.

The gates are more densely packed at the beginning of the shrine and it is only at the upper most parts do the gates become more sparse.

The entrance to the winding path is formed by two tunnels of Torii gates.



The entry to the winding path of the shrine

 The tunnels seem to go on forever in some parts and if you are lucky enough, you may get a view with no-one walking through like this.

The back of the Torii with the names of the donors painted on them

There are 2 main parts to Fushimi Inari shrine. Most people only do the first section which gets you to a fantastic view point over looking Kyoto and a tourist shop selling mini-Torii gates. What i thought was really interesting was when I bought my mini Torii, the man who sold it to me struck 2 pieces of flint together to make a spark over my gate for what i can only assume was for good luck.

The ascent to the look-out was dotted with little restaurants serving tea and little cakes. We didn't manage to stop into one as it was too busy at that time of year (after New Year people come in droves to the shrines to pay their respects).

The view over Kyoto

The second section of Fushimi Inari is the one less travelled by tourists. The gates get less frequent and there are some really steep parts. To my amazement (and embarrassment) I was always being overtaken by old Japanese folk while ascending what I thought was an endless amount of stairs. There I am huffing and puffing away thinking I was going to faint at the next step, and spry old Japanese folk who are smaller than me are almost bounding up the stairs! Once you get to the top there are many graves and cats sleeping on top of them. I have no idea why the cats were way up on top of the mountain, but there were lots of them and they all looked cold!

One of the steepest sets of stairs

You can easily spend 3 hours or even more exploring Fushimi Inari shrine, especially if you stop at one of the little restaurants for a well deserved break. I highly recommend visiting the shrine, even if you aren't fond of climbing stairs or aren't physically able to do so. The bottom section of the path is easy to climb and you can still get soak up the atmosphere the Torii gates create without having to climb to the top. You can also stop and turn back at any point along the path if you can't go on.

Fushimi Inari shrine is a unique sight of Kyoto and well worth the visit. There is a train station close to the entrance and it is only two stops (5 minutes) on the JR Nara line from Kyoto.

G