He is/looks like a little fox guy... I think he's really cute... but maybe that's disrespectful to say? Anyway, the only other thing I know about Inari is that his favorite food is Inarizushi. So there you go, you are now as knowledgeable as I am. Since Inari is the god of prosperity, many businesses have built torii for him throughout the years, so that now they're pretty much all just one big tunnel:
Here I think I'm annoyed at Erik for taking so many pictures:
Here's where the torii started to get really dense:
On the backside of the torii, the name of the business who had donated the torii was listed. Erik wanted me to find something recognizable like "Toyota," to no avail.
At many shrines there are little wooden rectangles that you can buy. In theory, if you write your wishes on these little rectangles and hang them at the shrine, they will come true. At the inari shrine, the pieces of wood were shaped like foxes. Everyone seemed to have drawn a fox on the front, and then written their wish on the back. There were some pretty fun drawings:
The shrine was really huge, and while it seemed like the main building was under construction (hence the lack of pictures), there were lots of smaller shrines where people had made offerings. I actually didn't see many inarizushi (maybe because of the rain? My guess is that Inari isn't too fond of soggy inarizushi), but we saw a ton of these little tiny torii placed at the smaller shrines.
Ooh, and the best part?? There were lots of kitties!!!
This black kitty liked me and rubbed up against my pant leg, but Erik wouldn't let me pet it because it may have been diseased. Whatever.
After the Inari shrine, we planned to spend the rest of the day checking out some cool old shops from the book Old Kyoto by Diane Durston (I highly recommend this book if you're ever going to Kyoto)... but first.... MONSTER PARFAIT!!!!
The top part was yummy with the strawberries and waffles, but it got less good as we progressed. Mostly whipped cream and jello. Maybe they didn't actually expect people to get that far down? But we're American, dang it! We finished the whole thing.
The old shops that we visited next have been in business for hundreds of years (like 1600s), which would of course be unheard of in America. It appears that I didn't actually get many pictures of the shops... so I won't bore you with too many details. Suffice it to say that we went to this really amazing shop that sold all sorts of paper products, calligraphy tools, incense, tea ceremony tools, etc... it was called Kyu Kyo Do according to my shopping bag. We also went to this shop called Bunnosuke-jaya. Apparently this is one of the few remaining places in Kyoto (perhaps the only remaining place) that sells Amazake, a non-alcoholic beverage made from sake lees.
It's the cup there next to my water glass. It's kind of hard to describe, but it was very thick (hence the glass of water... I needed a beverage to wash down my beverage), and was not super sweet, but I guess had sort of a natural sweetness to it? The owner of the shop explained to us that it didn't have anything added at all, it was just made from rice. I don't know that I LOVED the drink, but it was interesting, and I probably won't ever have another opportunity to drink it.
Thoroughly hydrated, we attempted to rush across town to visit the Kyoto International Manga Museum before it closed. I think we got there with about 45 minutes to spare.
There was a lot to see, and we only saw a fraction of it, but I would love to spend a whole rainy day in there. They had an exhibit about the history of manga and its spread worldwide, as well as many exhibits about the production of manga, drawings by many famous mangakas (people who write/draw manga), and some avante garde manga stuff. Erik and I mostly checked out the history of manga section... which pretty much made us want to read a whole bunch of manga. This is apparently a common response, as the museum has a whole huge library of manga in various languages that you can just sit in there and read. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and have to leave with our mangappetites unsatiated, left to later consume what is accessible in the United States.
Fushimi Inari shrine is probably my favorite shrine, I love the tunnel of torii! My mom doesn't like fox shrines though, they scare her because in Japan foxes are believed to have shapeshifting powers (like tanuki) but often tend to trick people in more malevolent ways (unlike tanuki who usually just do it for the lulz). If you get Inarizushi, it looks really tasty on the outside but then you find out that all that is inside is plain rice (the foxes think it's a funny trick). If you get Kitsune (fox) Udon, you get a bowl of noodles topped with a big square of the same fried tofu pocket thing as inarizushi (with nothing but noodles underneath!) I still think they are delicious foods but the backstory makes me laugh XD
ReplyDeleteAlso: I want that massive parfait. Let's make them sometime with the cornflakes and waffles and all XD
ReplyDeleteHahaha, that is pretty funny about Inarizushi and Kitsunde Udon XD. On a semi-related note, looking back I think it's really funny that there is a Tanuki suit Mario in Mario III :-P. As a child I never understood why he looked like a racoon, but his power was to turn into stone hahahahaha... Now that I know more about tanukis it all makes sense, but I wonder how many American children are still confused about that????
ReplyDeleteAlso, YUMMY! I even have cornflakes in my kitchen right now lol!!!