Kyoto Day 3 . Fushimi Inari Shrine

Fushimi Inari-taisha

Today was our last day in Kyoto and we couldn't leave without seeing our absolute favorite shrine in all of Kyoto. Fushimi Inari Shrine, or better known as the 1000 Tori Gate Shrine, is on the southern end of the city and is literally the site where 1000 tori gates are lined up one after another all the way up and down the mountainside.  It is one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Kyoto.  Each of the Torii is donated by a Japanese business and has the name of the business and their address on the backside of the Torii itself.  Inari is the god of rice and so merchants and manufacturers worship Inari for wealth.  It is the most remarkable thing to behold and so much fun to walk through.  We were here last year, almost to the day, to visit this shrine for the first time.  It was in the late afternoon and we were losing light fast so we weren't able to spend as much time walking through all the tori gates.  It was nice, though, to have been able to see the lanterns in the tori walkways lit up last year.  This year we got to see the tori gates in a whole new light.  It was still extremely crowded like last year but I was a lot more relaxed knowing that I already had some great shots from last year.  I enjoyed watching the people that were there and discovering more of what was up the mountainside.  Occasionally there would be little sections off the main tori gate path where there were little places of worship and family cemetery sites.  I had often wondered how they upkeep a place such as this.   We got to see men in action repainting some of the tori gates.  They actually painted over all of the black engraved writing and then I assume later when the orange paint dries they will come and fill in all the engravings with black paint.  We even saw a new tori gate being put in.  As we headed out of the main tori gate paths and back towards the entrance of the shrine we saw the cutest little girl all decked out in her kimono.  I quickly got out my camera and her grandparents who were holding her hands were proud to stop and let me snap a few photos.