Kyoto Day 2 Fushimi Inari Shrine and Nara Park - Oct 17

Today was a self guided day meaning we had to come up with ideas of where we wanted to go and then go there.  The first thing was not to sleep in a little bit and have a leisurely breakfast.  We decided to go to a busy place this morning so we are trying to avoid a crowded experience like we had at the Bamboo forest.  All of the hotels we stay at have a breakfast buffet included, serving up both western and Japanese fare.  Judith has her standard three course breakfast involving scrambled eggs for the first course, followed by granola with milk followed by a pastry, usually a cinnamon roll or danish. I like to have one egg over easy but not every hotel makes that even though they will make ham and cheese omelets.  Go figure.  The two egg omelets are too big for me so I usually have a Japanese prepared egg which involves a thick slice of tomagoyaki, a rolled omelet made by cooking thin layers of beaten egg in a rectangular pan.  The other thing I go for is a slice of bacon which I fold into a slice of plain bread.  It’s what my Dad used to eat and not only does it taste good, I think about him every time I make one.  The slices of bread here are small, often sandwich (square) shaped and only about 3 inches square.  The folded bacon sandwich I make is half the size of what I would make with a Canadian sized loaf.  

With breakfast finished we head out.  Our first stop is Fushimi Inari Taisha, a historic Shinto shrine dating from 711AD.  It’s one of the iconic sights in Kyoto, so I’m a bit surprised it wasn’t covered in yesterday’s tour.  It’s not a UNESCO World Heritage site although 17 other temples, gardens and castles around Kyoto are included in an omnibus Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto so maybe that’s the reason it wasn’t included.  The shrine is known for its 10,000 or so vermillion Torii gates (Senbon Torii or thousand gates) winding up Mt. Inari.  The shrine honours the God of rice, agriculture and business with fox statues serving as divine messengers.  

Getting there early allowed me to take pictures like this where very few people are present.  The largest sized gates are closer to the base of the mountain and they get smaller as you move up the mountain.  The crowds thin out as you proceed higher up the slope.  

The gates all have messages on the backside indicating the name of the donor (either an individual, family or company) and the date of the donation.  Sponsoring a gate is an active, ongoing tradition managed by the shrine and prices vary according to the size of the gate.  

Due to the unevenness of the steps going up the mountain through the toraii gates, Judith decided to stop partway while I proceed to venture up to the top.  The stairs are quite uneven and since there is no handrail, she is uncomfortable negotiating the descent. We just assume that I’ll come back the same way down and meet up with her.

Writing on the backside of the gate.  The Japanese have 3 groups of characters that they use.  Prior to the 5th century, there was no written language.  Only a spoken language existed.  Contact with China via trade led to the introduction of Chinese characters known in Japan as Kanji.  

Because Japanese and Chinese grammar are very different, using only Kanji was complex.  Over the centuries, the written Japanese forms evolved to three script groupings.  Kanji borrows Chinese characters and has adapted them to Japanese.  About 2000 common characters cover over 95% of everyday text.  Kanji is also used to represent Japanese words phonetically syllable by syllable and ignoring the character’s meaning.  Hiragana is a 46 phonetic character with curved flowing strokes.  It handles native Japanese grammar including verb and adjective inflections, particles and words that aren’t covered by Kanji.  And finally Katakana, a 46 phonetic character with angular and sharp strokes representing the same sounds as Hiragana.  It is used for foreign and scientific terms.  

Along the way through the gates, there are hundreds of family shrines, some of which look to be maintained and others less so.  

On the way down, I follow the crowd and I am diverted onto a different path than the one I came up.   I realize this when I’m already part way down, so I’m not sure if it’s better to turnaround and go upstream back to the top and then downstream all against the flow to meet up with Judith.   There is no shortcut path that I can see to get back on the trail I came up so I go all the way down to the beginning and then come back up.  I’m trying to hurry because I know that Judith will be wondering if I have abandoned her, but as it turns out she figured out that there was an alternate route down due to the very few people swimming back downstream where she was waiting.  We did eventually meet and headed back down to the base following some down streamers forging our way as we went against the crowd.  At the foot of the gates is the main shrine and there were Shinto priests moving about and looking like they were getting ready for a formal ceremony.  We waited a few minutes, but it didn’t start soon enough for us so we left.  

Shinto Priests in front of the shrine.  

Here’s a picture of crowds taken just before 10:00am around the time we left.  The busiest times during the day are yet to come.  

 

Our next destination was Nara Park.  This is a sprawling 660 hectare park famous for its UNESCO World Heritage Temples and over 1200 free-roaming sacred sika deer.  They are famous for bowing to visitors who offer special deer crackers (Shika Senbei).  It’s located in Nara, a separate city, but it’s easy to take the hour or so train ride there and back.  

It’s a hot day at Nara.  We walk though the town to get to Nara Park.  I spot a capsule store and get Judith to come in with me.  It blows her mind that there are people willing to spend their money on this stuff.  This is a retail store dedicated entirely to coin or token operated vending machines that dispense small plastic containers (capsules) containing mystery toys, keychains, figurines, miniature replicas, etc. There are also toy claw machines and other such machines to throw your money at.

Judith finds it hard to comprehend why this is so popular.  So am I.  

Next we come across another storefront dedicated to outfits for dogs.  I’m sure Judith would have bought something, but doesn’t have a dog in her life to give such a gift.  

I find a store selling meat buns (bao in Chinese) so I grab one to have for lunch.  We sit down and grab a quick bite before going to explore the local shrine. We see deer everywhere and are quite interested in how the deer will come up to unsuspecting people and start biting their purses or bags, or whatever else they are interested in biting.  

We’re on the grounds of Kofuku-ji, a Buddhist temple and one of Japan’s oldest temples, dating back over 1,300 years.  Kofuku-ji (the temple that Generates Blessings) was largely destroyed by fire in 1717.  It was dormant until 1882 when it was permitted to re-establish as a head temple of the Hosso Buddhist School.  

This is the central Golden Hall, Kofuku-ji 

We decided to get closer to the deer.  Judith purchased a pack of deer cookies.  The deer are smart and as soon as they saw Judith with a pack of cookies, they started to swarm her.

I found this scene amusing.  It happened shortly after they chased her a bit and one of the deer nipped her butt.  She then turned around to face them and they grabbed for the full stack of deer cookies as soon as she brought her hand down to hand them out.  They had her number.

There was no bowing in this deer mob action. And they really didn’t act as if they were sacred.

We did manage to get a picture of one of them and us together.

On the way home we went through one of the covered markets.  Higashimuki Shopping street is a long row of outdoor markets that are covered around the fourth floor.  

Higashimuki Shopping district.  This aisle crossed over a few streets.

That evening we went for a tempura dinner as we’ve discovered it’s something that Judith can dig into and unsurprisingly, it’s really quite well done here.  We then went to a performance of Drum Tao Kyoto.  We had ordered tickets a couple of days ago as we had this unscheduled time slot and thought this would be more interesting than a geisha themed event.  It’s a high energy show with lots of big and little drums and the theatre is not only small, but we had premium seats, so we felt every taiko drum beat.  It was a fun evening.

It takes a lot of skill and athleticism to play and perform.   It looks to be a pretty intense workout.  

This was our last night in Kyoto.  Onto the next city.