Day Eight- Kyoto

So... imagine you are in Kyoto. Imagine you are going to see the Fushimi Inari shrine (the one with 10000 Torii gates) What is the worst thing you can imagine happening. Is it that your travel companion drops not only his doughnut, but yours as well? No, although that did actually happen. Is it that you have no idea where to go when you get out of the train station and it turns out to be just across the road? No, not that either. I would guess that for most people, particularly for those who, like me, have decided that Fushimi Inari is their number one place to see in the whole of Japan, the worst possible thing to happen is to take your camera out of your bag, only to discover that it is broken. Yes, really. To say that I was heartbroken would be a little bit of an understatement, given that my camera is one of the most important things in my life (superseded only by Ice Bear I think) It was a Catastrophe of the highest order. Luckily, Boyo is very kind and returned my compact to me so that I could use that. While it was The Worst Part Of The Trip, it did not cause too many problems because we still had a camera each, even if I did have to buy another memory card. So, after the drama had died down a little and the policemen had stopped staring at the crying Western tourist, wondering what was going on, we entered the shrine. 

Even from the moment we walked in, I could tell it was going to be something special. The colours are spectacular, I think it has been renovated recently. 

 Rice is very important to the Japanese. This is Inari. He is the God of rice. There are loads of statues of Mr Fox, all of them are very well looked after. They are all wearing a bib and a lot of them have been left some lunch by adoring fans.

 I think I have mentioned that at every temple or shrine you can buy a wooden thing to write your wishes on and then hang them up in the hope that the Gods will help you out. These ones are for fox related wishes:

 These were my absolute favourite ones. In fact I bought one and brought it home. Currently it is blank but I would like someone *coughMRBORING??cough* to write some kanji on it.

 Anyway, Fushimi Inari is mega famous because of all the Torii Gates. There are 10000 of them. This is where they start:

 Every few hundred metres (it is all uphill, by the way) there is another shrine. These are the cups for washing your hands:

 Even with limited photographic capabilities, I still took about a million photos. This one is not one of the best but I like it because you can just about see the woman who was riding through the Torii on her moped!

 Due to a very tight schedule we did not have time to go right up to the top because that takes three hours and we had a lot more Kyoto to see. On our way back down we were accosted by a group of Japanese schoolboys who wanted to interview us. Despite their boring, unsailor-like uniforms we agreed. They also wanted a photograph for their school project. I said they could take one, but only if they would do it on my camera too. What do the Japanese say to make people smile in photos? "CHEEEEESU!" Yes, really.

 It seems that people go to shrines not only to pray but to buy souvenirs too. There was a kimono stall:

 The owners were really nice, they dressed Boyo up and didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that he probably wasn't going to buy it. In fact they encouraged me to take a photo of him!

 Here are some more wishes or whatever they are, plus literally actually like a million billion cranes. They are so neat, I am ashamed of the ones I have made!
We wanted to see Gion in the daytime, even though we knew there would definitely not be any Geisha.

 First we went to the Yasaka Jinja shrine. It was beautiful. I have no idea what these are but they looked cool:

 Hanari-keji in Gion is exactly how I imagine Old Kyoto. To be honest this is probably based on Memoirs of a Geisha (a book I will definitely be rereading as soon as I find my copy!)

 The streets are lovely and there are loads of tea houses which look nice from the outside but we didn't bother going in as neither of us really like tea.

 I saw this poster and photographed it because it is SO TRUE. I am totally in love with Japan.

 Mrs Blackbird received a very nice orchid from her Fledglings earlier this year. It is very pretty, but the flowers are about a third of the size that these were!

I thought this statue was of a Geisha but I thought wrong. I can't remember her name but she is the lady who invented Kabuki theatre. If it was founded by a woman, why were women banned from acting in it?!

In the afternoon we could no longer resist the shops. Judging by the amount of carrier bags I was carrying by the end of the day I think I bought half of Kyoto! This is the Nishiki Market which is well known for its culinary delights.

 Octopus lolly anyone?

 It was good to see that Spargelzeit is not just an Austrian/German thing. It is Spargelzeit in Kyoto too!

 Kyoto train station is nothing like the rest of the city. It is really modern and huge. If you go up really high there are some quite nice restaurants.

Oh, at some point during our trip to Kyoto (can't remember when anymore!) we went to the Sanjusangen-do temple. Sadly you were not allowed to take photos, but it is a temple with a huge hall filled with 1000 Buddha statues. They were so cool. I was sad to only have two days in Kyoto, it is definitely on my list of places to go to again!