This is where we entered the shrine. Now that I look at it, we were destined to start off on a bad foot. That gate looks backwards to me. I'm thinking we've entered the out. The Fushimi Inari Shrine is in Kyoto. It was very rainy and never stopped once.
As if there wasn't enough water already, here you purify yourself before entering the more sacred grounds. You take a ladle, collect the water from beneath it, pour it onto both of your hands, but don't pout the water back where you got the water from!
Here is a photo of the main entrance at the front. (Where we should have come in).
Here is a photo of the entrance up close. You can see the "mon" or crest of the shrine.
In front of the entrance, there is an apparatus that looks like it is for ceremony performances. Oddly enough, I came to that conclusion only after seeing things similar to it in Second Life.
This is a close up of the apparatus.
This is the place where you pray. You give a donation, ring the bell, clap twice and pray. Hopefully your prayer comes true!
Prayers in action.
A close up.
The fox deity of the shrine.
Looking back. . .
Pretty Plum Blossoms
Written wishes...
More wishes...
Ascent...
Another place to pray.
The Fushimi Inari shrine is famous for it's multiples of "tori" gates that take you through and over a mountain path.
On the backside of all the "tori," there are company advertisements. It is very expensive for a company to put their name here. :)
Beautiful forest surrounds the paths.
After that, my camera died. :(
Along the path there are many traditional sit down cafes. I wanted to eat at one, but since it was rainy, it would be strange to sit on our wet feet. Udon sounded very delicious in this cold rain. We also ended up taking a "trail" path.. which eventually got us lost. We somehow ended up two stations away from the station we had arrived at. Silly how that works out! All we knew was that we had climbed over a mountain. haha. We just followed groups of school children to the trains. I ended up getting sick from being in the rain the past two days. :\
I'm better now, and spring break is over. More studies are on my way. I've had to spend a while thinking about what courses to sign up for back at Mount. I've decided to pick up a "Non-western Studies" minor. I'm also taking random computer science classes for fun. (I need the credit hours to graduate...).
Next semester is looking great!
