Friday 15 May 2009

a day out to Fushimi: Fushimi-Inari Shrine

Fushimi-Inari Shrine, Kyoto
伏見稲荷大社(京都/伏見)

Then, we moved to Fushimi-Inari Shine(伏見稲荷大社) which is well-known for its 1,000 torii gates.


The shrine is also one of the most popular to visit for the first shrine visit at New Year in the Kansai area. I had only visited at that time and could hardly see anything but people, consequently the whole site felt surprisingly spacious this time.


Fushimi-Inari Shrine is the head quarter of all the Inari shrines through out Japan. The main god “Inari”, is the god of business. You can easily identify Inari shrines by a pair of fox guardian statues with a torii gate. The fox is considered Inari god’s massager.



Around the shrine are many shops selling this Shinto sect’s products such as miniature red torii gates, statues of foxes, family alters and the like.


Walking towards the mountain, we reach what are said to be “1,000 torii gates”, but in fact the actual number is slightly less than 1,000 now. The path covered with the gates leads up and down the mountain and the route takes 2 hours to walk according to the map.


We were too tired and I preferred not to go this time. Some of us have been along the path before and I put off till the next visit.

No comments:

Post a Comment