Our next stop is Fushimi Inari Shrine. Reason for making this shrine our last stop of the day was because this shrine opens 24 hours a day. We decided to visit this shrine late because we heard that it's extremely crowded during the day. And true enough, there was much lesser people at this time, a vast difference from some of the photos we saw from our friends.
From Fushimi Inari Train Station (Keihan Main Line), we walked through a street with shops on both sides. After passing those shops, we came to a lane with mobile stalls selling all sorts of food.
Soon, we came to a Torii Gate and arrived at the entrance of Fushimi Inari Shrine, which was beautifully lighted up.
Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社, Fushimi Inari Taisha) is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings.
Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes are thought to be Inari's messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds.
We understand that the hike to the summit of the mountain and back will take about 2-3 hours. As such, we never plan to do the entire hike. Looking at the shrine map, we decided to turn back before the steeper ascend to the mountain summit.
So here we went as we walked through the first set of Torii Gates.
As we walked further into the hike, the place got less and less crowded. If we were here during daytime, we will never be able to take the photos below.
The torii gates along the entire trail are donations by individuals and companies, and you will find the donator's name and the date of the donation inscribed on the back of each gate.
Along the way, there are multiple smaller shrines with stacks of miniature torii gates that were donated by visitors with smaller budgets.
At this point where we saw a flight of steps ascending the mountain, we told ourselves, it's time to turn back. :-)
On our way back, we saw a resident cat of the shrine.
Our time spent in Fushimi Inari Shrine was about an hour.
We thought of getting some food along the way back to the train station but all the food stalls and shops were closed.
Jerlene and Javier then decided to try their luck at the Gacha machines. Javier was overjoyed as he managed to get what he had wanted.
From the entrance of the JR station, we had a great view of the path towards the shrine.
We bought rice balls from a convenient shop nearby as we were slightly hungry at that moment. It tasted great.
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