Posted on September 10, 2024
This post is the third part of the my travel in Japan from March 23 to April 14, 2023. On this story, I visited Fushimi Inari Taisha early in the morning and Uji city, south of Kyoto.
This trip happened on March 29, 2023.
Fushimi Inari Taisha
My plan for March 29 was to go to Fushimi Inari Taisha first in the morning, then go to Uji, Kyoto before noon.
I departed early for Fushimi Inari at around 7am and walked to Kyoto station to ride the JR Nara line to Inari station. It took around 5 minutes however the interval between trains is longer so timing your departure time makes sense. Besides this is my 3rd time in the shrine, it is way too crowded by the afternoon so the best time is early morning however the shops and food stalls will not be open until 9am or 10am I believe.
I only bought water and bread for the short climb to the top. Unlike other mountain summits, Mt. Inari does not have a viewdeck on the top, but there is a viewdeck halfway to the summit. There are also vending machines so you'll have no problem with getting thirsty if ever.
Fushimi Inari Taisha enshrines Inari Okami (お稲荷さん) and the white foxes are its messengers which are seen around the area. The shrine has a history dating back from 711 with more than 1300 years of history. The blessings of Inari today is usually known for business prosperity and safety.
The most popular attraction in the shrine is the thousand gateways or senbon torii (千本鳥居). The thousands of toriis are painted in vermillion red with a black roof standing on every path you will take inside the mountain. There are 10,000 torii along all the paths in Mt. Inari. Very impressive indeed.
Noticeably, you'll find a lot of shrines from small to medium across the trail.
One of my favorite sections in the mountain is the viewdeck where you can sit and see the view of the city of Kyoto while enjoying my breakfast.
The hike took me about an hour and a half in total including the rest breaks. It is an easy mountain to climb standing at 233 MASL and it is beautiful mountain filled with ancient spiritual aura so you will not feel lonely while walking around the shrine.
I descended from the northern part where you can see cats roaming around sometimes and then there are cherry blossom tress.
I did not take a picture of the main shrine because it is now crowded by the time I have descended. Most likely it is around 10 AM. Some of the food stalls are open and the shrine shops selling charms and omikuji are open which of course I pulled one. I forgot what I pulled.
Descending from the mountain
While the hike was short, the trail was not packed and crowded with people as I imagined. The shrine is free of admission so you can go anytime you want but I don't recommend at night, it is a sacred mountain after all.