Fushimi-Inari Shrine

Recently, I made a day-trip to the Inari Shrine, located in Fushimi, which is a suburb of Kyoto that conveniently lies on my rail line. Inari is the Shinto god traditionally associated with grains and harvest and is now believed to influence profits--the harvest of the modern world! For this reason, countless orange torii (gates), donated by Japanese businesses, line the paths winding above the main shrine through a beautiful mountain forest.




I particularly enjoyed going to the shrine alone--whether the people living in my Seminar House believe me or not ;-). I developed bit on an artistic obsession with the bells hanging in the sub-shrines that dot the mountain and burned up hours photographing them.

Kyoto, about half an hour away from Hirakata by train, makes for lovely day-trips, so I plan to go to many more temples and shrines in the weekends to come. I'm quite glad to be situated so close Japan's most historic city and worry only that I might burn myself out before I get to see some of the spectacular places I'm saving for maple-leaf season. The city itself is a rather fascinating mixture of old and new: an urban core surrounded by pristine mountain temples and shrines. It's also one of Japan's centers for ceramics artisans (my ceramics professor at KG is trained in the Kyoto style), so I'm hoping to score the perfect tea set during one of my visits. Fingers crossed for the flea market at Tou-ji temple in November!