Japan 2013 Part 6 : Day 6 – Fushimi Inari Shrine 伏見稲荷大社, Tofukuji東福寺, Gion 祇園

The posts and summary for the whole trip, can be found here

♥November 27th Wednesday♥

Our last full day in Kyoto, and we decided to visit 2 more temples, Fushimi Inari Shrine 伏見稲荷大社 and Tofukuji 東福寺 which is on the same JR Nara Line, and one station away from another.

To be honest, if I were to plan for the holiday again, I would skip Nijo Castle, and probably visit a few temples less. We had in total visited 8 temples this trip! Way too many. Unfortunately, I can't turn back time, but will learn from this trip.

From Wiki -
Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社, famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates (鳥居), is the head shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is 233 metres above sea level, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines.

Since early Japan Inari was seen as the patron of business, and merchants and manufacturers have traditionally worshipped Inari. Each of the torii at Fushimi Inari Taisha is donated by a Japanese business. First and foremost, though, Inari is the god of rice.

Guess maybe it's a shrine for patron of business, and red is an auspicious colour, we see red everywhere.






A Taiwanese wishing (on her wishing plague or Ema 絵馬) she would pass her exams and become an official teacher soon. Hope her wish is granted!


There were bunches of threaded origami cranes hung at the wishing board. All the best to them too.


For us non-believer, we just rang the bell at the shrine for good luck.


Statue of foxes, which are the messenger of Inari, are found around the shrine.




Even the Ema (絵馬) or the wishing plagues are in the shape of foxes.


The trail leading up the Inari mountain is lined with torii gates (鳥居).




With the donors named written at the back, as well as the date the torii is donated.




After Fushimi Inari Shrine, we headed towards Tofukuji 東福寺, which is 1 JR station away.

It's supposed to be another good place to view autumn leaves; but by this time, seriously, it was just another temple to me, I wasn't really enjoying myself. Moreover, it was so crowded at the temple.
















I was so glad the temple visit was over, as it was a super cold day.


Thank goodness for a sweet stall set up opposite the temple, which offered complimentary hot tea, seats around a couple of heaters, and free access to the samples of the various sweets they were selling.


Since it was our last night in Kyoto, we all wanted to go back to Gion 祇園 for some shopping. Unfortunately, it started raining when we reached there.

We found a yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant for dinner, which didn't have most of what we wanted. So we had a quick bite and left. The rain subsided a bit, but it was still wet.

Yasaka Shrine 八坂神社, Yasaka Jinja), also known as Gion Shrine seemed interesting, but nope, I wasn't visiting another temple!


I stood outside the shrine with the girls while the hubs went into to have a quick look, there, we looked out to Shijo （四条通）junction at Gion.


While we were shopping, we were very lucky to spot a big group of Geishas walking out from Hanamikoji Dori 花見小路通, they were catching cabs and seemed like they were heading to some function which invited/hired (ok, I don't know how this Geisha thing works) all of them.


After shopping (not that we did much), as we were not satisfied with our earlier dinner, we went searching for another restaurant.


We chose Heikichi Negiya aka the Heikichi Onion Shop 葱や平吉, a restaurant which featured mostly spring onion or onion dishes.





This is some special grilled onion, a recommended dish, but to me it was just another white onion.


Their yakitori was better than the earlier place that we went to though.


Then it was back to the hotel to pack for our next stop.

Effect of Our Japan Trip

The 12 days Japan trip is probably highlight of 2013 for the girls; we did a lot of walking there, and now distance is measured based on the walk we took in Japan, and they are constantly asking when they can go back again (as if).

Brought Zaria to the market, she wanted this particular biscuit from a stall very far away.
Me : It's a very long walk you know.. You sure you are ok to walk there?
Zaria : How far? Like walking from our hotel (that we stayed in Kyoto) to (Kyoto) train station?
Me : Shorter than that.
Zaria : It's so near! Of course I can walk.

We went to Taiping last week of December (will post about that trip later when I'm done with Japan). We visited Maxwell Hill, took the jeep up to the peak, and walked down 3km on tar road, then took the jeep again, and then the last 3km we trekked down the hiking trail (steep and precarious).
Before we started :
Me : Have a look girls, you think we can do it?
Zaria : *looked at the path* I think this is more fun than the road.
Me : Very far you know, and it's all like that, you think you can manage?
Zaria : Is it as far as Takao? (our ~7km trek in Japan Tokai Nature Trail)?
Me : No, it's half of Takao's journey.
Zaria : Then this is nothing. *started taking the lead down*
o.O"

Zaria : Can we go back to Japan again next year (I think she meant 2014)?
Me : It's very expensive you know.
Zaria : But I'll help to pay for it.
Me : With what?
Zaria : With my allowance.
o.O"
Yeah right, RM5/week.

Japan 2013 Part 4 : Day 4 - Nijo Castle 二条城 and Nishiki Market 錦市場

The posts and summary for the whole trip, can be found here

♥November 25th Monday♥

This is how our room in Sakura looks like. Every night when we got back, we had to lay our futons out and put on the sheets ourselves (sheets were always folded and not laid on the futon after the room was cleaned) and after we woke up, we would fold the futons and put them at the side so we have some space in the room.

We'd stayed in 2 other Japanese style rooms later part of this trip, and the futons were always laid out for us.



That day we decided to do some city tour. We were told by the staff at the hotel to bring along an umbrella as it would rain later.

We took a bus to visit Nijo Castle 二条城 (Nijojo).

From Japan-guide.com : Nijo Castle was built in 1603 as the Kyoto residence of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Edo Period (1603-1867).

Entrance ticket was purchased via a ticketing machine (￥600 adults, ￥200 children).


Zaria trying zen sand drawing. She wrote 我要回家 (I want to go home), she actually meant going back to the hotel!






To be honest, I didn't think this was a nice castle to visit. The landscaping isn't that great, and the castle building itself wasn't that interesting. The girls however did learn about the nightingale flour (uguisu-bari), which was a security measure to prevent people sneaking around undetected.




And just as the weather forecast, it started pouring when we finished our tour at the castle. We took the bus and headed to Kawaramachi 河原町 as we have plans to visit the Nishiki Market 錦市場. Because of the rain, for lunch, we picked the first restaurant that we came across, and lucky us, it's this super nice Udon restaurant Omen うどん, we all ordered set lunches except Zaria who wanted grilled chicken.

Their chili pepper came in a variety of 'flavours'.


Here is what we got for lunch.






We had a walk about around the departmental stores at Kawaramachi, i.e. Takashimaya, Kyoto Marui, just because we couldn't walk on the street under that weather.



When the rain subsided to a drizzle, we walked to Nishiki Market 錦市場 or Nishiki Ichiba, a 400 years old market located on a road near Kawaramachi, and runs perpendicular to Teramachi Street 寺町通 (a covered shopping street), it is renowned as the place to obtain many of Kyoto's famous foods and goods.



There's a small but busy temple at Nishiki, 錦天滿宮 Nishiki Tenmangu.


The rest of the market, is shops after shops selling food stuff (ready to eat, ingredients), tea, kitchen utensil.























And for a female, when in Kyoto, a visit to Yojiya よーじや is a must, a famous Kyoto cosmetic/skin care brand.
Not that I bought much from the shop as I try to stick to natural skin care/cosmetic these days.

We wanted a yakitori (grilled chicken) dinner on that cold wet day, so we walked about to search for one; again, it was a lucky find, we went to Yaoki 八百起, which has pretty good food and drinks (the hubs like their Sake, I like their Sawa サワー, i.e. shochu and soda added with fruit juice).







After dinner, the rain finally stopped! We walked back to the hotel.