Another fantastic day (how much better can it get?!) and one which has really brought Honshu island alive for me, in the way that Shiretoko did for me in Hokkaido. We rented bikes again and folowed the railway line south out of the city to Fushimi-ku on the outskirts, and the very special Fushimi Inari-taisha.
This shrine is dedicated to the Shinto harvest deity Inari (rice) and primarily venerates this god's totem and messenger, the fox (Kitsune). Those of you that know me well then will understand that on hearing of this place I just had to go, and I was so glad I did. Not only was the cycle ride out there very enjoyable, but the shrine itself was like nowhere I've ever been or seen. The entrance area contained a huge torii (Shinto gateway) and a few large shrines, very beautiful but not so different from other Shinto places apart from the huge numbers of fox sculptures (usually in pairs, the left with a key in its mouth and the right with a ball). Most visitors come to this area, admire it as a wonderful shrine and leave again - which is a real shame for them as the main wonder of the place is missed.
Behind the main complex is another torii, and another, and another. For 4 kilometres, snaking up the mountain behind the entrance is a pathway with literally thousands of bright vermillion torii lining the path and forming bizarre tunnels amidst stunning woodland. I can only describe the sensation of walking this path as journeying through a dream, for it was a truly otherworldly place. We spend the whole day there, walking up and down through these mad tunnels and stopping at the hundreds of fox shrines along the way. The journey felt very meditational although we were playful and light-hearted throughout, and we had the very definite feeling that the world we stepped away from at the beginning of the torii trail was not the same one that we would rejoin at the other end, and in some intangible way I think this has happened. For me I guess this experience is the closest I've come to a pilgrimage and I am interested to find out much more not only about the fox in Japanese folklore but also about Shinto in general, and how this animist based system still seems so relevant today.
You can see the piccies in the gallery. The frog in particular scared me stiff, but I think this was due to having seen the very hammy Abominable Doctor Phibes when I was young: although a ludicrous movie in the extreme it has, for some reason, seeped into my subconscious making certain normally innocuous things induce terrifying flash-backs. Giant grinning frogs come pretty near the top of the scare-o-meter.