Kyoto II, Japan

Trail
The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds.

Beauty after beauty after beauty. Yes, Kyoto continued to surprise us with her charm effortlessly. We were off to the next highlight of the day, a place where thousands of vermilion Torii gates having different sizes are present.

Train Mountain
Will our train come from the mountains?
From Train
Fresh from the train, we saw the main welcoming Torii gate by the entrance of the shrine.

It was past noon already upon the first sight of a towering vermilion Torii gate. We have not had our lunch yet because the plan was to quickly see the series of Torii gates then fill our stomachs. At this point, there existed a time constraint. We had to be at the train station for the Sagano Scenic Railway, which was our next destination, before 15:35 or else we lose the tickets and no tour.

Lamp
Everywhere is vermilion, a brilliant red pigment made from mercury sulfide (cinnabar).
Backlighted
The back-lighted first Torii gate that greeted us when we came.
First
This is the first of the thousands of Torii gates on the grounds.
TripAdvisor
The place has been awarded first prize by Trip Advisor in the category “2015 Japanese site popular with foreign tourists” for 2 years.

For us to properly manage our time, we agreed on a specific time to meet up again by the entrance, which was just a short 40-minute tour. We had to make the most out of this short time before we took our lunch.

Second
This is probably the wife of the first Torii gate. We have come to the second one. Behind this is the Romon gate.
Romon
The Romon Gate was donated in 1589.
Under the Gate
This was under the Romon gate and towards the main hall, Honden.
Honden
The man hall, Honden, and various auxiliary buildings.

By this time, our eyes had already adjusted to the red pigmentation. It felt like being surrounded by still fire in the middle of the day with the pavements bouncing off the heat. Still, it was a beautiful sight. These Torii gates were donations and the bigger the gate, the more expensive it was. One can also buy miniature Torii gates, which I thought were souvenirs that one can buy. But because of the text written around the miniature gate and was left in the racks, I realized they were not souvenirs for sale.

Series
We were looking for the series of Torii gates but from the entrance, there were several structures first.
Miniature
Tons of miniature Torii items sold inside the shrine area.
Tiny
These looked as if they were souvenirs, but after some reading and because of the text written on these tiny Torii gates, they seem to be donations likewise.
Auxiliary
One of the auxiliary buildings inside.

We thought we did enough readings prior to the trip. This shrine apparently involved a 2-3 hours trekking to the top, which we were not aware of. I would have wanted to finish the trek and see more of this shrine, the Torii gates, and nature. This is definitely one of those places I would visit again if I will come back to Japan in the future. For sure.

Map
The entire map of the shrine. We only went to probably 10-15% of the area.
Start
Aha, there you go. This is the start of the thousands of vermilion Torii gates.
Mixed
There was a mix of Torii gate types. The cost starts around 400,000 yen for a small sized gate and increases to over one million yen for a large gate.
Foxes
Foxes are thought to be Inari’s messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds.
Deeper
Just a little bit deeper into the trail, more Torii gates were lined up.



Donations
The Torii gates are donations by individuals and companies, and the donator’s name and the date of the donation are inscribed on the back of each gate.
Even Deeper
The gates created a tunnel for visitors.
Denser
The densest part could be from this point towards the center.

With our watch as our basis to exit the shrine, we stopped at the point where we felt the series of Torii gates was densest and headed back. Manish and Preity were able to do one round-trip from one tunnel to the next while me and Mikee were focused on getting a shot of just one tunnel with no one inside.

Exit
The main hall, Honden, and Romon gate on our left. It was time to exit the shrine.

We hunted for a restaurant outside the shrine to have our quick lunch. Well, there were not a lot of options there as we walked further until we found this grocery-tea shop that sold few items. They offered their one and only best meal, their own version of omelet. “Sure, as we don’t have energy anymore and time to find another place.”

We had to wait for a while (maybe 10 minutes) for them to cook it. It was great, though.

Omelette
I don’t exactly remember the name of this dish but it was from one of those shops outside the Fushimi Inari Shrine. We had lunch at 2 PM.

We stormed out of the shop around 20-25 minutes later and started our amazing race leg n to the next pit stop.

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