Fushmi Inari Taisha is one of the most famous tourist attraction at the city of Kyoto. It is famous due to the number of Toriis that it has, which makes it look extremely spectacular. Fushmi Inari Taisha is located not far from Kyoto station. By taking the Nara train, it only takes about 5 minutes to get to Inari station. From there, it is just a minute of walking time to reach the temple.
We went to Fushmi Inari Taisha around 7AM in the morning. This is quite early since we have other plans later and did not want to go later along with the crowd. However, when we got there, there were already a group of people there.
The amount of Toriis did not disappoint. There were just so many, hundreds if not thousands. Each time when a donation is made to the temple, the temple builds a Torii for the donation and carve down when the name of the donor and when it was donated. Originally, we thought the Toriis were only at the bottom, but as we keep going up to the mountain top, there were still a lot more Toriis lined up on the trail. We were stunned. Toriis were all over the place from the bottom of the mountain all the way to the summit. The higher you go, the less people there are. It takes about 30 minutes to an hour to get to the top of the mountain. From the summit, you could see the city of Kyoto.
Fushmi Inari Taisha seems to worship dog as well. We saw many dog like statues on the side of the temple acting as guardians. Well, not sure whether they are dogs or fox.
There were also small Toriis placed on the top of rocks and inside smaller shrines. We are guessing that the size of Torii depends on the amount of the donation that was made. On one of the board, it indicated that the minimum donation is 1000 Japanese Yen. Not sure what kind of Torii will be given for 1000 Japanese Yen donation.
The visit to Fushmi Inari Taisha was quite an experience. It was our first time seeing so many Toriis lined up and formed a red tunnel along the walk way. Fushmi Inari Taisha is open 24 hours a day, so it is recommended to come early to take some good photos. It gets very busy later in the day and it is better to avoid the crowds.
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