Last trip...

Although technically my pass ends on the 30th, the 29th was my last "real" trip (read: Shinkansen ride). For this final day, I headed back to the familiar tourist haunt of Kyoto. Kyoto's an interesting city not only because it used to be the capital of Japan, but because it was recognized for holding so many culturally important buildings that it was spared the brunt of the USAF's brutality in the second World War. As such, there are many so many things there that you could easily spend a week seeing everything if you so wished.

I would say, however, that visiting all of them isn't really necessary unless its some sort of personal goal. All shrines and all temples are, essentially, the same and only the really famous ones stand out because of certain features. Whether it's Miyajima's floating torii or it's Ise's stark simplicity, there has to be a reason to visit them. And more often than not, it has to be something visual- the shrine or temple must be visually interesting to really pull tourists in; the shrine of the 46 Ronin is, though historically interesting, visually bland.

To that end, I placed the Fushimi Inari Shrine on my list because of its famous "tunnels" of torii gates. You might have seen this in various pictures or, rather famously, in "Memoirs Of A Geisha" where the little girl runs down the tunnel of bright red shrine gates. The shrine is dedicated to Inari, the god of prosperity (be it fertility, rice/agriculture, industry, or general worldly success) and foxes. As such, many businesses pray for success at the shrine and many of them donate a torii gate (each with the business' name inscribed on the pillars) for sure a purpose. Receive a few thousand donations and you end up with...

The shrine itself is just beyond the entrance (first picture) with various other buildings in the area (second picture). The gates (above) lead to a small hiking path that goes up nearby Inari mountain to various other smaller shrines.

Amazingly, I expected just a short tunnel section of these gates but it way surpassed my expectations by having torii tunnels all over the walking route, which takes about 2 hours to loop around, which results in both climbing the mountain and coming down the other side. It's worth noting that in striking comparison with the so-modest-everything-is-brown tone to the Ise Grand Shrines, the Inari shrines and gates almost glow with vermilion on a bright day, as you can see above. Also seen above is the inscriptions on the gates themselves.

As you walk along the path, you may notice that, like many other shrines, their defining feature has become the theme by which people may worship and Fushimi Inari is no different. Various sizes of mini torii are available (from ￥1200 to ￥10,000 sizes) for people to write their wishes to present to Inari (above).

And because Inari is also the god of foxes, there are fox-themed ema as well! Oddly, it's turned out that photographing ema at shrines has become a theme for me and I have a (small) collection of various ema shapes.

And then there are the obligatory statues of foxes. Many of them hold keys in their mouths, which is another symbol towards a prosperous life.

Overall, the shrine is definitely worth visiting simply because it's so visually interesting and it follows through with the notion that there are torii gates everywhere, not just some short section that everyone is allowed to walk through once. And at 2hrs to walk the main looping math, it's not only worthwhile to see, it's quick as well.

And finally, on my way back to Kyoto station, I visited the Rengeo-in, more commonly known as the Sanjusangendo (三十三間堂). The building is one of the longest wooden buildings in Japan (possibly the world) and its nickname comes from that fact that there are 33 spaces between the columns.

Within the spaces are a giant Thousand-Armed Kannon, 1001 life-size Kannon, and the 28 guardian deities from Buddhist scriptures. Unfortunately, because it is an extremely sacred building, photography is not allowed but I do highly recommend visiting this place because the statues are impressive.

As a sort of Buddhist Terracotta army, each of the 1001 life-size Kannon are slightly different and the guardian deities have small pieces of crystal inserted into the eye sockets to give a slightly more realistic look.

The best part about these two places is that they're right next to Kyoto station on the JR Nara Line. In fact, if you plan on visiting Nara as a day trip, I would say that taking the morning to see these sights on your way there works great, especially since the main sights of Nara can easily be done in an afternoon (by main I mean the park, its surroundings, and Todaiji).

Alas, that saw the last of my tour of Japan. I hope you guys enjoyed riding along and while I'm sure there's a lot I've still yet to see, it wasn't a bad way get the travelling started.

Stay tuned for some stats that I've collected on my journeys around this country =)...