We had to check out of the ryukan at ten in the morning, so we got up at around eight to start packing up. Since Mom and Grandma unpacked a lot of their stuff it took them awhile to get ready, and it took me awhile to get ready since I’m incapable of waking up in the morning, as you may already know. It was sort of a shame to leave, as the beds at the ryukan were some of the most comfortable I have ever slept on, even though they were just futons with comforters. Staying at a ryukan is sort of like staying at a bed and breakfast that someone has put together in their attic, in that it really feels like you are staying in someone’s house. This can make you feel a little awkward, but overall it was a really good experience, and I’m glad we stayed there (interestingly enough, the only conceivable type of accommodation I have yet to experience in Japan is a youth hostel). One thing that Mom and Grandma weren’t too sad to say goodbye to was the slippers. This being a traditional Japanese inn, we were required to take off our shoes at the entrance and wear slippers around the inn. This wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been for the fact that our room was on the second floor, and no amount of toe clenching could keep those slippers on my feet on the way up or down those stairs.
The first thing we did was to head across town and check in to our new hotel, which was done in a more typically western style (uncomfortable blankets and all). We dropped our stuff off there and then headed back to the station to catch a train to Fushimiinai Shrine. Our first attempt at a train was unsuccessful, as we ended up going the wrong direction. I’ll take a moment here to comment on the train system in Japan. Local trains in Japan are great, and they make navigating even the largest cities easy. I was able to get wherever I wanted in Tokyo with almost no difficulty. Also, they run often and are generally on time (local trains mind you). Confusion sets in when you attempt to read a map that has no English on it. Now, I can read hiragana and katakana easily, and I can recognize enough kanji to be able to generally figure out what a bus or train schedule is saying, or at least where I need to go. The problem is that the large maps are so cluttered that I don’t even know what I’m looking for, or where I am on the map. Because of this it is often hard to figure out which direction to go even if you figure out which line to take, as only the next stop on the line is consistently labeled. In this way I have more than once managed to get myself turned around and in the wrong station. In addition to this, the trains run in three different types; express, limited express, and sub-express. Each one will stop at stations in a different order, skipping every third station or stopping at every fourth station, that kind of thing. Sometimes it can be hard to find the train that is going to stop at every station, so it’s not a hard thing to get yourself going the wrong way. So once we got off the train that was going the opposite direction of the direction we needed to go we got on a train going the right way. Unfortunately we got on an express, and overshot our station before we were able to get off. Then we finally were able to catch a train and get off at the right station, where, upon disembarking the station, we learned that there was another station closer to the shrine that went straight to and from Kyoto station. So we went back and forth for almost an hour for no reason other than to keep ourselves occupied.
We did eventually make it to the shrine, and it was pretty amazing. It’s situated at the base of a mountain (not the rocky kind of mountain but the stout, forested mountain), and looks like any other shrine that you might find in the Kyoto area. What makes Fushimiinari shrine special, and the thing that it is world-famous for, is the toji gates. A toji gate is gate, the kind that you have undoubtedly seen on the cover of a pamphlet about Japan. Two pillars with an elaborate piece of wood across the top, traditionally and orange-red. They can range from massive, to tiny, to miniature, which are sometimes used to write prayers on. Fushimiinari shrine has four kilometers of trail that are lined with these (that is to say you walk under them). All in all there are over 5,000 gates on the mountain. Some of them are spaced far enough apart that you can step off the path if you so choose, but there are sections of the trail that are essentially tunnels. We ended up going up about halfway before Mom and Grandma got tired. Fortunately, there are rest stations with miniature restaurants situated at various points along the trail, and we were able to stop and have a bit of food and a drink. The view from that area was amazing, and there was a viewing spot where we could see the entirety of Kyoto’s city center. I decided to keep going along the trail and try to see as much of it as possible before sundown, which was around six. The trail was essentially more of the same, and the higher into the mountain I got the fewer people there were. The area is truly beautiful, and once I was out of earshot of any other people it was even more so. I went off the main path for awhile and followed a dirt trail that turned out to go nowhere, and I managed to make the full loop of the trail before meeting back up with Mom and Grandma, at which point it was getting late in the evening so we headed back down the mountain. By the time we got back down the mountain we were all exhausted, despite the fact that it wasn’t very late. We headed back to the hotel with no trouble with the trains. After we had rested up a bit we wandered around the area near our new hotel looking for a restaurant, and found a little place that looked like it might have been someone’s house. As it turned out, it was a restaurant in the style of a high-end Western restaurant, and we had a really good traditionally Japanese meal.