Japan Trip Day 7: Jinja (Pictures)
So this began my travels around Japan. My first real venture outside of Tokyo itself. Whereas I was getting used to Tokyo somewhat, these new areas were complete unknowns to me. I was way out of my element here, and only had a day to see the things I wanted to see in Kyoto. The GPS on my phone was being an ass again, and kept telling me to go one way, when the place I wanted to go was the opposite way, and I didn't want to spend the whole trip monitoring my location so Google didn't send me off into nowhere. But seriously, I was looking for the Arashiyama Bamboo grove, and the damned thing had me walk in a giant circle. So, there are a lot less pictures her than I wanted... But, it makes it much easier to sort through!
After going in a circle, I decided to just wander around, and naturally... I ended up at a temple. This one should be the Higashi Hongan-Je Amidado. This fountain was in front of it. And water fountains are nice.
You thought this was the same temple? Nope. I misnumbered my pictures, and put this single shot from Shosei-en Garden, which was just another place that I randomly landed at. Let's go back to that temple, shall we?
Seen from across the street, this is what I saw and decided to go there.
The temple was really kinda nice. But there appeared to be some sort of graduation ceremony or something going on inside, so I kinda didn't take a lot of photos.
This is the gate leading to the exit. A beautiful bit of architecture.
I took a long walk to go to the next stop on my trip, The Fushimi Inari Shrine. I saw these on the side of the road, and surprise! I took a picture of the Sakura! In the original post I said I was walking to the Yutoku Inari shrine, which would have been a very long walk from Kyoto.
Tanuki statue in front of a building. I was introduced to the concept of a tanuki back when Super Mario Bros. 3 came out. It was many years later when I learned of one of the tanuki's defining characteristics. If you zoom in, you might see the tanuki's pride.
If I had to say the one stop I absolutely HAD to make in Kyoto, it would be the Fushimi Inari Shrine. This place was massive. what seemed like 100's of torii gates everywhere. This is just one of the many fox statues around the shrine. The fox was the messenger of Inari, so the fox image is kinda common
This is the same spot as the previous picture, but I went for a wider view. So you can see two fox statues.
I'm not going to bore you by talking about each of these pictures, as there is no real point to them, other than to show the shrine's many torii gates. I believe each one was donated by a business, or business person, to commemorate luck in business. While Inari is primarily a rice god, he has come to be associated with business endeavors as well. Trying to get a picture without a crowd of people in it was difficult. Even when I thought there were no people, they just come around the bend like in that last picture.
The hotel in Kyoto. It was a nice enough room, but it was a little small. And of course, the bathtub was tiny as hell.
This should be a view of To-ji Gojunoto. A 5 story pagoda. it was quite the sight... this doesn't do it justice... maybe later after I am done with my very important walk.
More views of the pagoda. I made the mistake of taking all of these at ground level. I needed to get higher.
The target of my very important walk! I collect glassware from breweries, so I wanted to try my hand at getting some from Japan. This brewery was nice enough to actually sell me a glass. The glass survived, but I have since realized my shelf is full... Time to find another place to put my glassware. For the record, these were taken at the Kyoto Brewing Company.
There we go! A much better view of To-ji Gojunoto. I feel this view did it more justice. As you can probably see, there was a bridge that crossed the street nearby so I could get this picture. I actually ended up resting the camera on the railing to make sure I got a good picture.
Apparently I left these out of the original album. Probably because they aren’t the greatest of pictures. But, I am deciding to post them now, because why the hell not.
My demon mask that I bought at Fushimi Inari. It was the last one that the little shop had, and it feels like it is made of ceramic. For the price, I am very happy with this little guy. Even more important, it survived the trip inside my luggage. I was afraid the trip, or perhaps the TSA might destroy it. Currently he is hanging on my wall near a miniature kitsune mask my chopsticks, and a few replacement omamori. Those will be included in a future gallery.
