Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine

I really love this place. It is probably my favorite shrine in Japan (at least thus far). I’ve visited each time I’ve been in Japan. Yes, take the time to walk the trail. I believe it is about 4 km. You can stop for a beverage or food along the way.

A short trip from Kyoto and well worth the trip. Get an early start if you want to cover all of the grounds of the beautiful mountain shrine.

You kidding?? Please, the book is better anyways…
We started climbing this at like 2 pm, and by 6 or 7 we were back down and on our way to our ryokan. Well… partly because of when it was getting dark (it gets dark at like 4:30 during the fall and winter) and we were climbing down, we stopped at an all Japanese sign that gave instructions on how to go back down. We confused the kanji “left” with “right” (左＝left 右＝right) So we went right when it said left… the path become more and more scary and then there were no more lights. Oops…. after that we made our own system for remembering left and right kanji.
For 左 the エ　in the kanji is the same “e” sound as “left” and the ロ in 右 starts with “r” like “right”. No more confusion!
All and all, this was an awesome place to visit, and I’d defiantly climb it again and know where i’m going.

This was definately worth a visit… although I didn’t quite reach the top, I did get to see at least a thousand Torii. Walking throur the Torii is an experience, especially after seeing it in Memoirs of a Geisha.

Make sure you have lots of energy for this one. You have to scale a mountain to see it all. It’s well worth it though. The thousands of gates are really amazing. Plus when you get to the top of the mountain you get a great view of the city of Kyoto. There are nice little stops along the way if you need to get some drinks or food. The food basically consists of udon though, so if your not a fan then you should eat before starting the climb. Some the most amazing parts of the trail are the small shrines along the way. You can buy a minature “torii” or gate to place at the shrines if you want to pray for something specific.