Fushimi Inari. And getting lost. Lots of lost.
Today was the day that we had planned to go to Fushimi Inari
(not really an Otera or a Jinjya…It doesn’t have any ties to Buddhism nor
Shintoism, so it’s sorta just…there), one of the things that I’ve wanted to do
for years! It was very cathartic actually being able to go one of the locations
that I’ve literally dreamt about and to see it with my own eyes!
Anyways, before we actually got to Fushimi Inari we first
went as a group to Kyoto station with our passports in order to buy our JR pass
for the week that we’ll be sight-seeing Japan via bullet train (shinkansen).
While our Sensei was busying himself jumping through the bureaucratic hoops in
order to get us our passes, we all went downstairs in the Kyoto station to nab
some lunch. I bought a Bentou which is basically your basic lunch box with food
separated into various compartments to keep the flavors from mingling before
eating. The 3-year-old version of myself would have LOVED it. Almost as much as
the 23-year-old version of myself did, haha!
After lunch we bought ourselves some desert (I got some
sponge cake) and met back up with everyone else to hop on a train going to
Fushimi Inari. Luckily it was only 2 stops away and only took us about 10
minutes to get to the actual site, even though the train we were on was
obviously meant to accommodate long-term commuters who would be on it for much
longer than we were, hehe. The plan upon arrival was to visit the birthplace of the fortune cookie (no
joke! The fortune cookie was invented in Japan, and is still sold right down
the road from Fushimi Inari and is still sold in the exact same spot, haha!),
but unfortunately it was closed….Sensei explained to us that some places in
large tourist sites will close on the second Friday of each month in order to
give themselves a break—because they are usually working all day Saturday and
Sunday. Bummer =(. We still bought some authentic Japanese Fortune Cookies,
which were much less sweet, and more sesame flavored. My fortune read that when
faced with important life decisions that I should gather in all information as
possible, weigh out my options, and remember to choose the option that will
result in a more brilliant future down the road
and not just the one that will give me immediate results. Pretty awesome
fortune compared to the ones we get in fortune cookies in America =P. 
After buying and reading our fortunes (or, rather, having
our sensei read them for us…it was in old Japanese that none of us really
understood), we were accosted by a group of Japanese students wanting to ask us
questions in English for their English class homework. Apparently English
teachers will assign their students to go to popular American tourist sites so
that they can learn American English by talking with Americans, haha! They were
not only good at speaking, but they understood a lot more than I thought they
would as they were only 9th graders!
By that time it was getting pretty late, and we were burning
daylight, so we headed up to Fushimi Inari proper to start the hike and take
pictures. The main draw of Fushimi Inari is the literal tens of thousands of
vermillion painted Torii gate that line the many pathways of the complex. I’m
not too sure on the exact dates of the start of the Fushimi Inari Torii gates,
but some of them are centuries old. Basically, donors would pay large sums of
money to the complex that Fushimi Inari was built around in order to get a
Torii gate erected with their name on it. When it was erected, the front was
left plain, but the crafters would carve the name of the donor onto the back of
the gate. It was by far the highlight of my trip thus far!
After Fushimi Inari, I got back on the train and went back
to Kyoto Station. The day earlier, my okaasan showed me a map of Kyoto so that
I would understand the inner-city workings a bit more and so that I would be
able to make sure not to get lost. During the conversation she pointed out to
me that our house was pretty close to the station—to the north and to the
west—so in my naïveté I decided that, being the master of Kyoto that I am, that
I would go boss-mode all over this city and just find my own way home. Screw
the amazing public transit system.
So I started walking. First north. Didn’t recognize anything. Then west. Once again,
recognized absolutely squat. After about 40 minutes of just walking north and
west and not recognizing jack, it started dawning on me that trying to meander
my way home probably wasn’t the best
idea I’d entertained. I kept on keeping on, however, but started asking people
I met in the street to direct me to Shijo-dori (basically 4th avenue
in Kyoto), which is the street that the bus I normally take home goes down.
They kept pointing me north, and so I kept walking north. For a long time. I finally made it to Shijo-dori…only to
find out that I was a good 45 minutes away from my house from where I popped
out on the damn thing. So basically I wandered the back-streets of Kyoto,
thinking I was going the right way, only to have to take the bus home anyways.
So my wanderlust was pointless, haha…Super humbling. Needless to say, I haven’t
gotten lost since then (It’s now Tuesday of the following week =P).
While I didn’t have any super embarrassing speaking moments,
there is still one note-worthy thing to write down…While I was lost in a
residential neighborhood of some flavor, I see a middle-aged man walking on my
side of the street, and decided to ask him for directions:
What I said: Excuse me. Could you please tell me where
Shijo-dori is? (Chotto ukagaimasu ga…Shijo-dori wa doko de gozaimasen ka?) ちょっと伺いますが。。。四女どりはどこでございませんか？
What he said: I no speak English (I no speak English) I no
speak Engrish.
And because there was no room in the post...more pictures:
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