4. Kyoto and Fushimi Inari

Golden Week

Part 4

The Final Leg of the Journey.

This is my favorite shrine...the Fushimi Inari Shrine, just outside of Kyoto. The path up the mountain is lined by THOUSANDS of torii. INCREDIBLE. after the first few turns in the trail, the crowds dissipated and we pressed onward, making our way to the top for another super view of Kyoto surrounded by green mountains. I have awesome pictures of this place, check out the link above.

Kyoto has over 2000 temples...many of which are just average size and frequented by locals daily. Of course, with limited time we hit up the biggest and best temples and shrines first. Here are a few favorites....above: Kyomizudera.
Found a couple spare minutes the last day so I watched my first anime film. (And I understood about 70% of it! Maybe I will adopt it as a new study strategy...)
Ginkakakuji: beautiful zen garden
Heian Shrine: awesome fiery orange with green accents. Gorgeous.
Ran into a bunch of students who were offering their English services---and gave us a free tour of Kiyomizudera. Great kids and their English wasn't too shabby!
Arashiyama---the monkey mountain. These tame little guys were all over the place! Hundreds of monkeys in which you could feed by hand, but their aggressive ways and lack of nearby emergency staff, forced me to sit back and watch.
Kinkakuji...the "Golden Pavillion". Kinda Vegas-ish eh? I enjoyed the setting of this temple, the temple wasn't exceptional, but the beautiful gardens surrounding it made up for it. So many more pics of temples and sights...please click on the link above to check them out! Thanks for viewing the site!

It was a fabulous trip, the last "major" during my tenure over here. So glad I could experience this part of Japan...so rich in spirituality and history. Loved it.