To Recap: In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by several days in Seoul. Now I was footloose and fancy-free (i.e., lost a lot) in Kyoto, Japan. I found one of the most beautiful and interesting places I’ve ever seen and I’m going to give you the first of two final sets of pictures from there.
After seeing the Fushimi Inari temples, the thousands of vermilion torii gates, the occasional shrine on a side path, warning about wild monkeys, and finding every inch of space used, I finally found the top of the mountain.
As someone who lives in a desert with attitude (i.e., Los Angeles) I was fascinated by the sub-tropical rain forest ecosystem. The contrast was stiking between the vermilion torii gates and the foliage in a million shades of green.
As you get near the top of the mountain you can get a new perspective, looking down on bits and pieces of the paths below you, as well as the forest canopy.
Another fountain with some sort of beast depicted, wearing the traditional vermilion yodarekake. Given that the fox is the animal most commonly associated with the kami Inari Okami, I’m thinking it’s a fox, but it looks much more like a seal or an otter.
I just never got tired of these views.
At the mountain’s highest point I found another collection of dozens and dozens of shrines. There were only the narrowest of paths between them. Many of the interior paths between shrines had a significant amount of spider webs across them. Since it’s my understanding that the families associated with these shrines come to visit them regularly, I can only conclude that they’ve got some very active and healthy spiders up here.
Just beyond these shrines there’s a point where you can look down on the city, in this case through the drizzle and clouds. I don’t know the official height of the mountain, although I found some references to it being 233 meters (764 feet).
Several routes come together at the top of the mountain, so of course I had to take a different one down than the one I had come up!
Here I found a shrine built to allow candles and incense to be burnt, as well as the two built-in stone vases. For the record, all of the flowers I saw on all of the shrines were fresh, not decorative, which is one of the reasons I believe that the shrines are visited and tended to frequently.
The flags and banners were something I saw while going down this path that I hadn’t seen going up one of the other paths. There seemed to be a handful of shrine sites all near each other that all had these on display. It made me wonder if there were different factions or sects around the site, all having a connection to Fushimi Inari-taisha as sacred ground, but each with their own slightly different customs. Mind you, I don’t know if that’s true, but I did wonder about it.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 