New Years shrine visit.

(Austin)

    We spent January 1st recovering from our long Tokyo trip, but New Years is a very important event in Japan. Everyone goes to a local shrine and prays for good fortune and protection in the new year. It is less a religious event these days and more of a cultural ritual. 

  

    Our Japanese friend Ryosuke invited to join him to go to a shrine on January 2nd. We traveled to a shrine in Kyoto whose name escapes me.. Sorry, I forgot the name. Anyways, as you can see in the pictures there were many people there looking for good fortune in the new year. After waiting in line you reach the front of the shrine where you will see ropes hanging from the ceiling and a deposit box in front of you. You deposit some money, typically a 5¥ coin (a nickle), ring the bells attached to the hanging rope, clap, pray, and then bow.

An example of the above description.

    After presenting our offer for good fortune in the good year we decided to find out our luck. At shrines and temples usually offer a way to find out by way of randomly selecting a stick. There is a big containing that contains hundreds of thin sticks. Each of these sticks in numbered. You shake the containing and a stick will slide out through the small whole in the bottom. After receiving your stick, you memorize the number and put the stick back into the containing. Nearby will be a shrine worker that you can exchange the number for your luck fortune, usually for 100¥ ($1). They have a range that you'd normally expect: Horrible luck and Fantastic luck and everything in-between. The papers also detail what you'll have success with in the new year and what actions you should be wary of. Often messages will detail things like "good luck with language studies", "neutral luck with love", "bad luck with animals, be careful!" and other things. When I did this during my visit to Kiyomizu Dera during my first week in Japan I got "bad luck!", however this time I got "neutral luck", saying that it was up to me to make my only luck. I think that's fitting.

    After visiting the shrine we left and headed further into Kyoto, going to a nearby station that had a mall right beside it. We went and had crepes because we wanted more after the crepes we had in Tokyo. They were really good.

Fushimi-Inari

(Austin) Last Wednesday, Nov 11, we went to Fushimi Inari, one of Japan's most famous shrines. It is located near Kyoto. In Japan, there are 2 major religions: Buddhism and Shinto. Temples are for Buddhism and Shrines are for Shinto.

Fushimi Inari is the head shrine for the Inari Okami.  Inari is the kami (god) of foxes, of fertility, rice, tea and Sake, of agriculture and industry, of general prosperity and worldly success. Inari is also one the main 8 gods of Shinto and has been worshiped since the 5th century.

Because Inari is the god of prosperity and worldly success, companies pay patronage to the god by donating money to the shrine to have Torii erected in their name. There are thousands of these torii all over the Fushimi Inari shrine, each with names carved into them. The size and detail of each torii is determined by the amount donated.

Our friend, Ryosuke, invited us (Elijah and I) to go to the shrine and then join his family for dinner.
Yusaku and Georgia happened to be going to the shrine the same day, so all 5 of us met up at Hirakatashi station and departed on the Keihan line towards the shrine.

About 30 minutes and a train transfer later, we arrived in Fushimi Inari station which is decorated to resemble the shrine, with the cross beam supports looking like red torii.

Walking to the shine took about 7 minutes. Along the path leading to the shrine, food vendors and souvenir shops were setup up attracting large crowds. From this point onward is when I started taking pictures. We were these for -hours-, so I have a bunch of pictures of the shrine.  After taking some pictures at the opening of the shrine, we set off.

You'll see most of the shrine through the pictures that will be posted below. There are a LOT of pictures, so be prepared ;)  Note: Part of the way along the path through the shrine there is a secondary path that you can take to the top. It goes through the backside of the mountain and you see a lot of smaller family shrines built into the mountain. It is also a much harder trek. This is the path that we decided to take.

I'll be posting about dinner and visiting Ryosuke's home in follow up post because of how long this one will be due to pictures.

Here are the pictures.

Map of the entire shrine.

This represents Inari, the kami of foxes.

I took a picture of this just to show how they were securing the stone pebbles used. Keeps people from kicking them all over the place. Pretty cool.

The idea behind this is to 'wash your hands in blessed shrine water'

The more you donate, the bigger the Torii.

--------The secondary path starts here------

Some of the family shrines that we found

Old American cartoon. Was surprised to see it. 

This is a tarp over a stack of wood, protecting it from rain.

Spiders. Spiders EVERYWHERE.

Finally back on the normal path!

Top of the mountain! Whooo!