Fushimi Inari

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Some friends and I visited the Fushimi Inari Shinto Shrine last week. The shrine is located in the hills outside Kyoto and is dedicated to Inari, the god of rice, sake, and prosperity, especially prosperity in business. "Fushimi" is the location. It was founded in 711 AD. The shrine is famous for its 10,000 torii (shrine gates) that arch over a long path up the hill behind the shrine. Each gate is donated and inscribed by businesses and individuals thankful for their prosperity. They are positioned so close together that they form a tunnel up the hillside. 

Beginning of the tori tunnel

The shrine had been freshly renovated and was positively gleaming. These were some of the workers who maintain it.

Our group (Nicole was taking the picture) at the front gate to the complex.

One of the guardians of the gate

Lanterns hanging from one of the shrine buildings. There seemed to be one for each sign of the Zodiac. This  one is for you mom!

Not sure if that is a key or a fish in his mouth!

  Foxes are a major theme at the shrine. They are said to be the messengers of Inari and are generally considered helpful, but they have also been said to bewitch people. The keys that some of them hold in their mouths are for the rice granaries. 

The beginning of the line of tori gates

Kristen, Nicole, Tricia, Tina, and Lisa

This guy was kind of scary!

At one point the path split into two. Each was lined with tori gates.

The symbols on the sides tell the company that donated the gate

These were fox faces that you could purchase from the shrine, decorate and leave as a sort of prayer to Inari.

Some of them were very artistic!

One of the monks (female) working at the shrine.

I love stone lanterns!

The forest surrounding the tori gates

Stone lantern with a fox motif

All 6 of us - Tina Maloney, Lisa Clapp, Me, Nicole Brown, Tricia Thomas, and Kristen McCreery- other than Kristen, we're all P&G wives.

With some of the kids who interviewed us. Getting our picture was  also very important!

It was a beautiful setting and could have been a very peaceful spot. However, they day we were there, the shrine was swarmed with school children who had an assignment to ask a series of questions to the foreigners they saw. They were cute and we wanted to be helpful, but after the 4th interview and 10th photo shoot it got a little old!