Honeymooners: Fushimi Inari Shrine and Japanese Street Food

April 11, 2015

Honeymooners: Fushimi Inari Shrine and Japanese Street Food

Our first order of business on day three was to get our butts over to Fushimi Inari Shrine. This shrine is in honor of Shinto, the God of Rice, and if you’re married to an Asian like I am, you’d totally understand why this shrine would just HAVE to be a big deal. It’s one of several thousand shrines dedicated to the god, but by far the most important. Though we arrived early, it was crowded right away.

Music was playing and we caught the end of a performance that allowed no photography, then began going through the winding tails lined with torii within the shrine. I had seen many photos of this shrine, but had no idea how large of an area the winding vermilion torii gates take up. There’s over a thousand torri lining two and a half miles of upward climb to the top of the mountain. After agriculture stopped being the primary focus of the Japanese, Shinto gods have shifted in what they represent. The god of rice is now synonymous with the god of success, and each torii has been donated by individuals or businesses in hopes to have success.

The fox, or Inari Okami, is said to be the messenger of the Shinto God, so there were many depictions of it throughout the shrine. After a short distance on the trail, there was an opportunity to write a wish for the Gods to answer. Others decorated the foxes on the front to personalize it, and we followed suit, then wished for a long and happy life together as husband and wife.

That's the one I made — That’s the one I made

The trails continued on…

There were shrines for other Gods as well, like the God of Success and the God of relationships

and on…

This was the top summit with a view, Yotsutsuji Intersection. According to Japan Guide, few people go higher than this summit. Mark and I, however, are both the type of people that are determined to finish what we began (which, really is a part of what ultimately brought us together: our shared passion for endurance racing) and we kept going and going.

There were many stop-offs on the trails that had foods, souvenirs and drinks for sale. We saw first-hand how they got there:

Shinto God of Rice, Tea Ceremony, Traditonal Japanese meal (17 of 35) — Hard work!

And we kept going…

Until we reached the top!

On the way down there were more things to see than torii, like these:

And when we explored a bit more at the bottom, there were walls and walls covered with chains of one thousand origami cranes. Ancient Japanese legend says that whoever folds a thousand cranes will have a wish come true by a crane, or possibly eternal good luck. I guess I should get on that!

After we left, we noshed on some delish street food.

This one was similar to fried chicken. — This one was a special kind of fried chicken.

sticky rice wrapped in meat, topped with spicy mayonnaise and green onions

japan street food — fried rice balls with red bean or sweet sesame inside

We did a bit of shopping, but we had a traditional tea ceremony & Japanese dinner to attend!

Travel

honeymoon, japan, kyoto, rice, travel, wanderlust

Posted by:

Kelsie O

one of those creative types

2 responses to “Honeymooners: Fushimi Inari Shrine and Japanese Street Food”

Midhun Antony

April 12, 2015 at 3:17 pm

Wonderful pics 🙂

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Honeymooners: Traditional Tea Ceremony and Traditional Japanese Meal | tiny Kelsie

April 13, 2015 at 8:58 am

[…] visiting Fushimi-Inari, we made our way back to the hotel to get ready for a traditional tea ceremony. It was downtown […]

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About Me

I’m an artist. Sometimes I paint impressionist townscapes in oils, other times I sketch out what I’d rather be painting in pencil. I design intentional environments in my home, and sometimes I get around to projects that the design consists of. I flip thrifted clothes, or I let ideas pile up like used fabrics overflowing from a box in my basement. This is a metaphor, but also a fact.
I’m a writer. Sometimes that means bad poetry. I often meander in my prose, as I find it hard not to mention every detail, what something reminds me of, and all of the background information you could never want.
I’m an explorer. Sometimes I explore the great outdoors, or other countries. Other times, my nose deep in a book, I’m exploring the universal human experience, nature science, ancient wisdom and impacts of colonialism. Often, I’m exploring my own inner experience through train-of-thought journaling.

I’m restless in my curiosity and consistently creative. To an outsider, it’s clear that leading a creative life involves output: paintings, outfits, decor, a garden. The creative knows that this output requires a frequent stream and synthesis of that input. This blog is the space I use to organize and sort my meandering thoughts and pile of ideas.

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