Rain or shine, the show must go on. We knew it would be a pretty wet day and were prepared for it. Our first stop of the morning was the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. This is an important Shinto Shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings.
Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes are thought to be Inari's messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds. Fushimi Inari Shrine has ancient origins, predating the capital's move to Kyoto in 794.
Nara
We hopped back on the subway, stopped for lunch in the station, and then made our way to Nara Park. Nara Park is known for its free-roaming deer and world famous temples. The deer are sacred here and have been trained to bow to ask for deer crackers that are sold throughout the park. The rain didn’t stop the deer from coming out to meet and greet those of us that braved the weather. In the park there are also a few other attractions. The first one we visited was the Shrine. The vermillion and white shrine buildings are festooned with beautiful brass lanterns, lit twice a year in winter and summer. The shrine is also famous for wisteria flowers that bloom in May.
The second attraction was Todaiji Temple, a Buddhist Temple complex that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples. The temple is a historic UNESCO World Heritage site in completed in 752 as the head of all provincial Buddhist temples. It houses the Daibutsu (Great Buddha), a 15m bronze statue, within the Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall), one of the world's largest wooden buildings. The Great Buddha statue is often mentioned as the world’s largest Buddha statue, which did not make sense to us. After further research, we learned it is the largest cast Bronze statue.
Dinner
After roaming around in the rain all day, we wanted to take it somewhat easy and decided to head out for a nice dinner. We took a taxi to a very fancy hotel and stopped at their small bar that was recommended to Matt by the couple at the Liquid Cuisine experience the night before. Our hotel is directly across from the main Kyoto Station. We figured it would be easier to have the taxi take us there instead of explaining the exact address of our hotel. That turned out to be a big mistake. Our taxi ride was about 20 minutes, but it took us over 30 minutes to figure out how to get from the side of the terminal where we were dropped off to the side of the terminal where our hotel was located. You cannot walk around the station due to the trains, you must navigate through the labyrinth of the tunnels under the station. We exited the station a few times only to find we were on the same side, just a little further down the block. Apparently Matt learned nothing from getting lost the night before. We finally made it across and stopped at the Don Quiote, a famous variety store, right next to the hotel.
