Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Day 1 - Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe Trip 2017 - Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社)

After lunch, we decided to visit Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine since we could not check into hotel till 3 pm.

Fushimi Inari Shrine is located just outside JR Inari Station, the second station from Kyoto Station along the JR Nara Line (5 minutes, 140 yen one way from Kyoto Station, not served by rapid trains). Please note that only the local train stop at Inari Station. (The train will have an sign to state if is local or express train).

From Kyoto Station, proceed to Level Two to enter the railway station, look for Platform 9. We use our ICOCA card (IC Card) that we bought at Kansai Airport, and tap the card on the gantry gate to enter the station to board the train. It is easy to use just like our EZ link card for Singapore MRT Train. It there's insufficient money in the IC Card, there's a machine in the station to top up the card. The IC Card can also used on the bus and if there's insufficient money in the IC Card, can always pay the difference and slot into the machine in the bus.

Board the local train at Platform 9 and alight two stations away at Inari Station (only 5 minutes ride).

Inari Station is a very small station and the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine is just opposite the train station.

This shrine, dedicated to the god of rice and sake in the 8th century, also features dozens of statues of foxes. The fox is seen as the messenger of the god of grain foods, Inari, and the stone foxes are often known by the same name. ( source)

The most impressive must be the over 5000 vibrant orange torii gates that wind through the hills behind Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine. It's difficult to take a nice decent picture of the orange gates, so many tourists walking up and down and posing for photos. I gave up after waiting for a long time for trying to take a nice photo of the gates without anyone in it hahaha. It takes about two to three hours to climb up and down the hill so I did not attempt to climb all the way up.

There's a shopping street near the temple and the train station, we need to cross over the railway track and it was nice to watch the train pass by. (See below video).

On the return journey back to Kyoto Station, proceed to Platform 1 and wait for the train.

Video of visit of Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine and its shopping street

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