08. Kyoto & Fushimi Inari

An extra early start today to say goodbye to Mika and the boys. Unfortunately she had to leave a day early much to the disapointment of the boys. Due to this we brought forward our trip to Kyoto which is only about 30 minutes away by the Bullet Train.

Kyoto is the most historic city in Japan and escaped the destruction of WWII so there is a lot of temples and shrines that are there to be toured.

Since we arrived in the afternoon and all the other temples are central we headed out to Fushimi Inari. This site is the central site for the Shinto Inari shrines that are all over Japan and dates back to 711. Inari is the goddess of rice and this site is still used today by Japanese businessmen who come to recieve blessing for good harvests. Each one of the orange torii gates is donated by businessmen wishing to recieve blessings. There are literally thousands of these gates at Fushimi Inari.

The fox statues act as guards and a number had offerings of Sake at their base.

This was interesting mainly to see that these shrines are still in active use today and while we were there, plenty of businessmen in suits were around to receive blessing.