Exploring Kyoto with no Translator = fun!

This weekend's plans were "explore Kyoto." I don't know if you know this, but Kyoto is almost as big as Osaka, which is approximately the size of New York City. We didn't really have a plan on where to go in Kyoto, nor did we have a native Japanese speaker among our group of four to guide us. All we had was a tourist's guide to Japan that was (thankfully) written in English, courtesy of Heather. So we set off on Saturday morning at about 10:30 from Seminar House 4 to Hirakata-shi where we caught the train.

Having ridden a train only once before, I still acted like a total gaijin and stand near the door so I can stare out the window. It was decided on the train that we were going to go to Fushimi-inari Shrine. For those of you who do not know what Fushimi-inari shrine is, think Memoirs of a Geisha, when Chiyo runs through all those magnificent torii. (yes, we went entirely because we wanted to see the shrine where that moment was filmed)

Fushimi-inari shrine is maybe three blocks down the road from Fushimi-inari station (which is a local station and only local trains stop there, meaning the train ride to get there is very very slow). Fortunately, at the station there is a sign written in English that says Fushimi-inari Shrine and an arrow pointing the way (though I think we could have figured it out otherwise because the kanji for the station and the shrine should probably be the same, you would think). Just like Kiyomizu temple, Fushimi-inari shrine has many shops on the way to the shrine. It's very good advertising--the shrine had stone carvings of foxes everywhere and the shops had little cute versions of the fox all over the place (I bought a fox keychain that jingles and has two of what must be the cutest foxes I've ever seen on it).

I have several pictures that will be uploaded to facebook and photobucket as soon as I find a card-reader. For now, I'll try and describe it to you.

About the shrine:
Fushimi-inari is a shinto shrine, though I'm not sure to whom or what, though I'm betting whatever it is either is a fox or really likes foxes. Oh, and whatever it is really likes sake too (there were almost 200 little alters on the way to the top and each one had a sake set sitting on it). One of the interesting things about Fushimi-inari is that there are two major parts to the shrine. The first is not that far into the shrine and features what I would call the every-day use of the shrine. To get to it, you walk through a set of tall torii and then through the same set of torii that Chiyo runs through in Memoirs of a Geisha. The second set of torii are thinner, closer together, and much shorter than the first set. I was able to walk through it without bending over, but I know several people who would not have been able to walk upright within those torii. After the second set, there is a major area where you can do several things you typically do at a shinto shrine. For instance, you can buy charms to help you do better in school, have good health, get a boyfriend, and just about everything else. You can also buy a plain peice of wood, or, for a little bit higher price, you can buy wood in the shape of a fox face, and on the wood you write your troubles. At night, the wood is burned and supposidly your troubles are burned up along with the wood. Also in the area is a small alter with torii all over it (you can also buy small wooden toriis and write your troubles on them as well) where business men come to pray during their lunch breaks (which I found rather interesting anthropologically).

The second major part of the temple is not for the faint of heart or the physically handicapped. You start at the bottom and climb stairs all the way to the top of the mountain. The toriis are partially shaded so sometimes you get a cool breeze to help you and sometimes you're standing in the blazing hot sun. Additionally, the price of water is directly proportunate to how high you've climbed (at the bottom it was a large bottle for 120 yen; at the top it was a small can of water for 200 yen). Also, the shrine tricks you along the way three times into thinking you've reached the top by strategically placing three smaller alters along the way and making the gated pathway go down a little before it goes back up again, each time with even steeper stairs. I can't tell you how glad we were when we finally reached the top (with the largest shrine/alter up even more stairs but we didn't bother trying to go up them). Fushimi-inari really makes you work for your goal.

So, you could say that I climbed a mountain on Saturday. If that wasn't enough, we had to walk back down the steep stairs to the bottom where we rested and bought souvenirs. I bought a fan (it was hot and the fan was cheap but pretty) and a little keychain with bells and two little foxes to remind me that yes, I did make it all the way to the top of Fushimi-inari. I am also convinced that an accurate english translation of Fushimi-inari shrine would be "Shrine of the foxes and never-ending staircase."

We then got back on the train and headed towards the last stop in Kyoto, Demachiyaga (sp?) station. There we got off the train and went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant (tinier than Taste of Thai) where we had lunch at about 4 pm. One thing I haven't mentioned about Japanese restaurants before is that outside the door most restaurants will have a display that shows you what each of their specialty dishes looks like, along with a name (usually in Kanji) written on paper in front of the display. This restaurant's specialty was ramen but what I had, I am told, is essentially the Japanese version of a Chinese rice bowl. It was a bowl of rice topped with vegetables and meat (I think beef) and shrimp (very small amount of meat and shrimp) all doused in a sort of sause. It is simply delicious and I must find out how to make said sause (everything else looked fairly simple to make).

We were originally going to go to the Golden Pavillion but it closed at 4, so we wandered around near the station for about an hour after we ate. Next to the station is a river and a park where people from that side of the city come to hang out on nice days such as Saturday. That Saturday, someone was sponsoring a local band to play on the island in the middle of the river. They made the four of us english speakers laugh. Half of their song had the engrish words "sekushi" (sexy) and "beibii" (baby) thrown randomly into the lyrics. Of course, we got several stares since we were the only non-Japanese people within a ten foot radius, but it was still fun.

Dark clouds began to show up so we left the park just in time to get underground and on the train before it rained. The ride home was very quiet because we were all very tired (who wouldn't be after climbing a mountain??). We road the bus back to Seminar House 4 where everyone else went to bed, but I still had a good 15 minute bike ride to my house near makino station. Had I known how to get home from Makino, I would have preferred to get off the train there.

Sunday, I was surprised that I was able to walk. I was still very sore, but not so much that it prohibited me from going shopping with my host mother at kazuha mall. We ate at a Chinese place and discussed Halloween. She teaches an english class and tries to give her students as much American culture as possible by celebrating American holidays. She wanted to know how Americans celebrate Halloween, and I told her as much as I could. At the chinese restaurant, what I had was essentially a breakfast. It was egg and pork and that's all. Oh and a coke, but the coke at the restaurant tasted funny because it wasn't anywhere near as carbonated as the coke I'm used to. There was also melon Fanta but I'm a little wary of trying that since it looks radioactive green...

For dinner I had fish and a rice bowl and I also tried the tofu thinking that maybe Japanese tofu would taste better than American tofu. No. Tofu tastes like tofu and tofu tastes absolutely nasty. I'm not sure how I managed to eat the whole peice she gave me but I was trying to be as polite as possible. When she offered more, my polite Japanese suddenly came back to me: "Tofu wa chotto..." I did eat more of the fish though.

I have decided that I love rice. I've been eating at least one bowl of rice per day and I haven't gotten tired of it yet. The truth is that rice is a part of almost every type of meal. You can't avoid eating it, but not that I want to since rice tastes good no matter what it is cooked with (except maybe tofu, but I'm not willing to find out).