Day 11: The god of rice and his foxes

As usual, before Masa went to work, he left us with a little surprise. Casper greeted us on the way out this morning.

When we were at the Malaysian airport on our way to Japan, we met an American guy who claimed he had visited 80 or something temples and shrines in Kyoto. I'm not sure how he did it because by day 11 I was being a bit more selective, especially since many temples and shrines had an entrance fee. I was half expecting Sanjusangen-do to be another one of those touristy places that I'd have to pay and be disappointed in but the attraction was actually quite spectacular. This Buddhist temple's name translates to "thirty three spaces between the columns", a name to describe the architecture of the main hall.

The main hall

"Sanjusangen-do"

In the temple lives the Thousand Armed Kannon. Actually, it houses 1001 Thousand Armed Kannons but only one spans from the ground to the ceiling. On her left and right, 1000 smaller identical statues stagger themselves in 10 rows. Each statue has 11 heads and 42 arms. If you minus the two regular arms and multiply by the 25 planes of existence, you get 1000 arms! 28 guardian deities, originating from Hinduism, are spread along the hall in front of the kannons. I was caught in huge groups of students and other tourists but managed to snap a sneaky blurry photo between the "no photo" signs.

Thousand Armed Kannons

A short train ride took us to Fushimi district in Southern Kyoto. Mount Inari stands 233 metres above sea level and has a network of trails running through. The main shrine is called Fushimi-Inari and is one of the most important shinto shrines dedicated to Inari, the god of rice. As rice was a measurement of wealth and status back in the days, many merchants would come pray to the Inari. Within the mountain grounds, there were as many as 32,000 smaller shrines. Many of these shrines had statues of foxes around, animals that were believed to be Inari's messengers. The most impressive sight, however, were the thousands of orange torii gates that straddled the trails, each donated by a business, that led us into luscious bamboo forests.

Our special bamboo forest

Small torii gates could be purchased from shops along the path.

Someone offered a Kit Kat to Inari. If Inari knows what's good for him, he better accept it.

We stopped for lunch at an Udon restaurant with a beautiful view of the bamboo forests. Please note my extreme tan lines after 11 days in Japan.

Back at Kyoto station, we stood in front of a donut shop deciding what we wanted when an elderly Japanese man came up to us. He spoke English well and welcomed us to Japan. After a couple minutes of rambling he took out a piece of paper and started reciting sentences written in English. At first it was some pretty dark stuff, something about people getting cancer and we thought he was going to ask us for money. But then the sentences became random and irrelevant. He left us with a smile and asked us nothing more but to enjoy ourselves. When we finally sat down with our coffees and donuts, we saw him approaching a foreign couple and attempting to perform the same act again. The couple waved him off, unfortunately.

THERE IS A FOUNTAIN IN KYOTO STATION THAT RAINS PAGODAS.... along with Japanese and English.

Masa's mum invited us to have dinner at their place again. This time, she made tempura! I just texted Mason telling him that we need to tempura everything when I get back to Vancouver.