Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. Miles of Tori!
Kyoto is known fro the Fushimi Inari-taish shrines - and a day trip to Nara for the deer!
Entering the Fushimi Inari Shrine
Miles and Miles of Tori! (Known as the Red Gates)
The Shrines line Mt Inari for Miles
Oh the dangers of a beautiful place - at 2-3pm with so many tourists and people. Who am I to complain when so many people want beautiful sites, but the sheer amount of people can make the adventure so crowded. Every photoshot we had to wait a few seconds to see a break in people. The best shots take seconds of people breaks. The shrines of orange (red?) rows never ended. The higher you hiked, the bright orange rows of shrines were there, with the added benefit of less and less people.
A Japanese local who was at the site - looked us up and down and pointed to the top of the shrine mountain. Measuring us - It's 1.5KM - it'll take you 25mins! Haha - are we that out of shape or are we fit? I wonder what he was thinking, young americans? Unfit asians? Fit athletes. Yeah the last one.
The shrine has temples and graves - besides the miles of o
Travel to Nara - real Deer even possible?
For $2 you can get deer crackers and feed the local deer
Do we continue to the temple or stop for the deer! It was 4:30 pm and getting dark - oh but the deer! And indeed they were as used to human presence and normalized as one could think. Have real food or pick leaves off the floor, and they would come to you. You were free to hug and pet - at no cost, anywhere in the parks. They were even crossing the street field to field! Only after did I learn that you should really wash your hands when petting the wild deer. But in Japan - there were some bathrooms that didn't have soap - yet the place was the cleanest hostels/hotel we've ever been. Some redditor advice was wash your hands as they got hand and foot mouth disease? Not to scare you because the deer were so sweet
Todai-ji Temple
We continued this pace to the Todai-ji Temple Mile walk. Unfortunately, the temple just closed by the time we got there. Part of me thinks once you've seen one temple you've seen them all - but this one had HUGE statues. Enormous. Massive. The biggest crowds.
The entrance to Todai-ji Temple - deer sold separetly!
