Kyoto: Fushimi Inari

From Japan Guide:

“Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社, Fushimi Inari Taisha) is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds.”

While we originally only planned to spend half of a day here, between our late start and the little detour we took coming down the mountain, we ended up spending almost the entire day here…and it was worth every minute.  It is simply something you have to experience if you are going to be in Kyoto.  And if you have an active 5 year old, she would love running around the forest underneath the beautiful orange torii gates.  So, without further ado, I present to you…the Fushimi Inari (warning: if you don’t like orange (the color), this gallery may not be for you).

the main gate

Shrine’s main building

foxes are thought to be messengers for Inari (the Shinto god of rice), and they are all over the shrine grounds

Senbon Torii (“thousands of torii gates”)

Senbon Torii — the other direction

this one’s got a nice knitted hat for the winter

if there is a camera, these two will be ready to pose

we took a different path on the way down, and entered this area

we ended up hiking in the forest for the next 30 minutes, without any crowds, just us and the forest…

when we finally emerged from the forest, we came upon this little village

someone’s triangular yard

a beautiful display in the window of a small shop

a quaint little temple along the way

finally, the train station (we ended up being 2 stations north where we started)

mission accomplished!

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Tags: Fushimi Inari, Kyoto, torii gates

• February 25, 2013
• Japan
• 4 comments