Fushimi Shrine

The Fushimi Inari Shrine is located on the outskirts of Kyoto, only ten minutes away by train. It is the largest of the shrines dedicated to Inari, the Japanese god of rice and sake. The shrine is best known for the hundreds of torii, donated by various companies, that line the paths up the mountain behind the shrine. There are actually thousands of torii if you count the small ones that people leave as offerings. Inari is also the god of foxes, which explains the many statues of foxes that we saw everywhere.

There was a festival scheduled for the evening of the day we were there, so the main entrance to the shrine was decorated with paper lanterns. Every day, people visit the shrine to leave offerings to the gods. Shintoism is a polytheistic religion, so we saw offerings to the gods of harvest, fertility, and intelligence. We saw a middle-aged woman making multiple offerings to the god of intelligence: she must have several children in school. There were also many ema (small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshipers write their prayers or wishes) hung on the walls in the shrine.

We did not make it all the way up the mountain to the inner shrine, nor did we stay for the evening events because the bugs were eating us alive.

A small section of the torii-shadowed path through the forest.

Prayers for passing exams, written on ema and addressed to the god of intelligence.