If you remember, we were going to Fushimi Inari shrine. And we wanted to go at night for that "creepy" factor, since spiders kept us from going last time.
So we're here on the train! (That train looks like ours, but is actually right next to the one we're on). As expected, Kyoto's trains are much older than Tokyo's, and shorter, too. This one was only 4 cars long. Most all the ones in Tokyo are at least 10.
As you can see, Cinnamon's having a grand ol' time taking up the entire bench.
We're listening to our tunes on the train ride, in case that wasn't obvious.
Finally, we made it to the shrine! Does this look familiar? It should!
We hiked and hiked, up and up and up the stairs and through the thousands of torii gates.
At long last, we made it to the top as the sun was beginning its descent over the mountains.
It's only 764ft. to the top, but after climbing all those stairs, our legs were telling us it felt much higher! But at least we weren't all sweaty and gross this time around.
One more view of the city from the top of the mountain. Everything looks so tiny and far away.
Supposedly, or so I read, it's good luck to see a cat at a shrine. You'd think our luck would be pretty awesome, then, since we saw six!
Here's the first one, just chilling off the main path. I don't have a picture of the second one, as there was a Japanese couple taking a picture of it and petting it (it was much friendlier than the other ones).
Cats 3, 4, and 5 were all together!
And finally, cat number 6!
I believe these are all fortunes tied to lines of string, though I'm not really sure if that serves a legitimate purpose or not.
After making it to the top of the mountain, there's a smaller loop you can make around that has more torii and some smaller shrines. So we kept on going around that.
The sun had set and darkness was beginning to encroach, making the lights along the path come on.
Here's a fox statue decorated with fallen camellias from passersby. There were several huge camellia trees around the mountain--easily 25 feet in height! I didn't even know they could grow that big!
We came upon this neat little area with a (man-made) waterfall. The water was pouring into a bucket underneath. I'm fairly certain this is for religious pilgrims to stand under and cleanse their spirits or something to that effect. In any case, I'm sure it'd be really cold!
This is facing away from the waterfall. You can see all the water from it is running down the sides of the pathway. Pretty neat!
We also came across these little boards. I guess you're supposed to draw a fox face on them or something? I'm really not quite sure. But I thought these two sets were very cute!
Most of the other ones looked pretty goofy. Or like they were drawn by five-year-olds.
Once we made it out of the loop and back to our starting point, we were greeted by this spectacular sight.
I'm a little upset this picture came out so grainy, but I'm thankful it wasn't terribly blurry. Thank heaven for image stabilization!
Our mission complete, we set out for the bottom of the mountain, taking extra care in the darkness. It really wasn't all that creepy, but there were still quite a few people out and about, so I guess that helped. I could see how it could be creepy if no one was around and it was really pitch black out, though.
At the bottom of the mountain, we made a quick stop at the bathroom, and since apparently people are curious about the strange Japanese toilets we have here, this is your run of the mill Japanese or "squat" toilet. These are typically found in train stations and the odd public bathroom (say, in a park or on the side of the road or something).
For some reason, this bathroom thought people needed a little instruction. Mystery solved! (And for those of you who are wondering, yes, there's a flushing lever or button/sensor, it's just not attached to the toilet itself).
Once we finally made it back to Kyoto proper, we were hungry and cold, so we decided to head to Coco's for some hot curry! The ones in Kyoto are bigger than most of the Tokyo locations (in that they have an upstairs seating area), so when we got there, we headed upstairs... and were extremely disappointed to find a pair of British guys talking very loudly. We tried to sit as far away from them as possible, but we could still clearly make out their conversation (which consisted of politics, economics and history). It really ruined our whole dinner experience!
Afterward, we made a stop by the conbini for dessert, then headed back to our hostel for the night. We still had one more day of Kyoto shopping ahead of us! But that's for next time...
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