Kyoto, Japan (October 28, 2025)
Today, we check out Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto Shrine and have an awesome first full day together in Kyoto, Japan.
Bill, Violet and Elena in front of Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto Shrine
Depending on who’s Apple product (phone or watch) you believe, we got somewhere between 10 and 13,000 steps today as we walked around the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto Shrine. This was one of the more unique views I’ve seen in my adventures to date.
The giant gate that marks the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto Shrine
I’m not a historian nor am I a practicing shinto faithful, so what I will share is my own experience here — one of being awestruck at the beauty, the architecture and the reverence all coming together here. And then something magical I got to witness with Violet and her art.
At the main shrine, there are thousands of prayers. In fact, I believe this is one of the main fundraisers of the shrine. People (tourists and visitors) buy decorated placards and write their prayer on them and leave them hanging in the temple along with burning candles and dropping coins.
What you see above is Violet copying the characters in Japanese to transfer our prayers onto the miniature we purchased and were encouraged to take home with us as a souvenir. In fact, it’s the perfect Christmas ornament that will forever memorialize our day together here in Kyoto, Japan.
Three prayers in Japanese that Violet wrote for us on this miniature
We could have choose any of the many prayers made available in Japanese, but the three we choose were:
Be in sound health
Safety of one’s family
Earnest prayer being answered
If you look at the Japanese characters from the chart listed above, I think Violet did an excellent job copying these characters onto this miniature and now we have this incredible orniment. Wow. What talent she has and aren’t we lucky to have an artist in the family?
Time to climb the mountain — each arch is “sponsored” by a family
As we walked up the hundreds of steps to the top shrine at the top of the mountain, you can see how there are hundreds of extremely large versions of the gates leading up to the top of the shrine. Each has an individual family’s name and dates associated with them and I’m sure came with a (not insignificant) contribution.
It’s essentially an incredible orange tunnel (trellis?) that goes on for miles and loops all the way around. If my Apple Watch is to be believed it’s a total of more than 5 miles from top to bottom — and that doesn’t include all the side trails we didn’t explore today.
Elena taking a quick break to get a picture in as we climb up
In a moment, I’ll show a gallery of these arches to attempt to give it some perspective, but again, it’s stretches for miles and miles and miles. Each arc is huge and dedicated from a particular family. Think about that for a moment. The sheer numbers are impressive. The amount of work to assemble all of this is mind boggling. The work to maintain it even more so. And then you see the stone versions that are sprinkled in between all the orange versions (the “OGs” from hundreds of years ago) and you see where it all began.
How do I look? Is this a good pose? Or should I go more like this?
Okay, let me give you a bit more perspective so you can zoom out and see what I’m really talking about here. This thing is impressive and I’m just teasing it out with these individual shots. The gallery will at least give you a bit more volume and different points of view to play with.
Okay, so you get it. Or you don’t and can’t from a blog post. Either way, this is what I have to share in this medium. It was a lot of steps up the mountain. A good view of the city of Kyoto from the top. A shrine that was certainly at the peak, but not all that different from the other shrines on the way to the peak if I’m being perfectly honest. And, of course, the base were all the prayers were being shared was still the most spectacular part of the day.
Once Elena, Violet and I finished our peak climb, we enjoyed a vanilla ice-cream cone on the way down. Yes, there was the alternative flavor of “soy bean” but no thank you. I’m finding there are times when I’m all in on being adventurous and other times when I want what I know I’ll enjoy – like having a known ice-cream flavor vs. one that I may or may not enjoy.
Golden Buddha reminding each of us to “shine bright”
The last part of the journey took us to the “Golden Buddha” and that was neat to witness. It’s a great reminder of that now famous story that we all have a golden Buddha inside of us and sometimes we forget because we cover up our golden Buddha with plaster and gunk and forget that underneath all that garbage is our original true “golden” self just waiting to shine bright for everyone to see.
For lunch, we waited a solid hour to be seated at a sushi conveyor belt where we could select from many different types of fish going by. It was a very authentic experience and full circle to the very first time I introduced Elena to sushi more than 25 years ago when we were living in Alameda, California and I took her to her first “sushi boat” experience. Now we’re getting something similar in Japan. With Violet. Wild. We ate all we could handle and enjoyed ourselves and this feast.
Tonight we’ll explore a bit more of the city of Kyoto and call it a very successful first day. This is all new to me. While this is my second time in Japan, this is my first time spending quality time outside of Tokyo. Glad to be here exploring different parts of Japan with Elena and Violet. More to come!
