Anyway, since it was our last day in Kyoto, we made a trip down to Inari Station for the popular Fushimi-Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社), which is also the home to the thousand torii gates!
The area around the shrine is surrounded by so many statues and symbols of them! I later found out that it was because foxes (known as Kitsune, 狐) were thought to be Inari's (Shinto god of rice) messenger, and since the Fushimi-Inari Taisha is an important shrine dedicated to Inari, many fox statues can be seen across the shrine grounds.
One key attribute to these foxes is that they have a key in their mouths, and the key is said to be the key to the rice granary.
Heading into the shrine, we went straight to the Nai-Haiden, which is where people pray to Inari. It was crowded with so many people, but the line was pretty quick and before we know it, it was our turn to ring the bell (suzu, 鈴), make our prayers and give our thanks.
After paying our respects at the shrine, we begin our Fushimi-Inari Hike up the famous torii gates covered trail, which is also known as the Senbon Torii (千本鳥居). From all the reading and research I've done prior to this trip, I was not shocked by the crowd at all. There is an endless stream of people walking up and down the trail and, also, there are those who stop along the way to catch the split second of opportunity to snap a quick photo of the clear trail.
Okay, we did snap a few shots too when we saw the opening. Hahaha. Thank goodness for boyfriend's good selfie skills.
Along the hike up, we came across a Shinto ritual taking place and decided to stop and observe. It was quite eye-opening for us because it was different from the way our religion does it. I would say that it is similar but different.
There are several shrines along the Senbon Torii, and we stopped by a few to pay our respects and make our prayers. One of them was the Okusha Hohaisho (奥社奉拝所), which had a stone called Omokaru Ishi (おもかる石). The stone is placed on a stone lantern and we were supposed to make a wish in front of the lanterns, make a guess on the weight and pick up the stone. If the stone feels lighter than what we expected it to be, that means our wish will come true. But, if the stone feels heavier, that means that our wish is unlikely to come true. Since it was famous, we had to wait in line for our turn.
As we walked down the Senbon Torii, I took every opportunity that came where I was able to take some photos without the stream of people in the background. I must say, the window period to capture such photos is within seconds. Have to be quick.
We continued on to the point that we have no idea where we were, and I was getting pretty worn out from the crowd, and that was when we found an off beaten path and took it almost immediately. We really needed to get away from those streams of people.
The path led us to a small shrine that was very peaceful. As usual, we paid our respect and found a little corner to rest a little while listening to nothing but just the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind. Super peaceful. From the shrine, we followed the path further and realised that it was the path that leads to the summit of Mount Inari! I initially wanted to get on this hike up to Mount Inari because it was so tranquil but midway we saw a sign that said it was a 40-minutes hike up, which would mean that we will lose daylight, so we made a u-turn.
Since the sun was starting to set, we decided to make our way back down and do a little shopping (I was looking for this particular fox hairpin). Despite the endless crowd, Fushimi-Inari Taisha was indeed exquisite!
By the time we got back to Kyoto Station, it was already about 7pm. We quickly collected our luggage and headed over to the JR Ticket Office and booked our seat on the next train to Tokyo, which turns out to be a Nozomi train that we weren't eligible for, and we only found out when the train conductor was doing his round of checks. I was so confused because that was the train that we were told to get on and it even has our seat number, but apparently, our JR Pass does not cover the Nozomi trains! Luckily, the train conductor was nice enough to let us get off at our destinated station, Shin-Yokohama Station, which was also the next station.
The Japan Rail (JR) Pass covers all JR Group limited express trains, express trains, rapid and local trains, and the shinkansen bullet trains, except for the Nozomi and Mizuho trains. The Nozomi and Mizuho trains are payable.
Our accommodation in Tokyo for the next 8 days was located at Higashi-Shinjuku Station. The apartment was considerably big, accessible, with mini-marts and food places around, near to the train station and is walkable from the heart of Shinjuku. It was pretty awesome.
Since we reached our accommodation earlier than expected, after checking-in, we walked over to Shinjuku (新宿区) in search of food. There were so many choices all around but boyfriend was feeling for some sushi, so we went and had some!
The sushi was not that great compared to the ones we had for the past few days, so before we call it a day, we bought some takoyaki, gyoza, mochi and dessert for supper back at our apartment.
And of course, the boyfriend got his beer as well.
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