Fushimi Inari Shrine: Foxes, Treasure, and More….
Little Boys Like Sticks making noise with it as you go makes walking more fun -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.6, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Little Boys Like Sticks
making noise with it as you go makes walking more fun

Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2 about our visit to Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社).....

A short climb from the pretty lake mentioned in Part 1, you come, surprisingly, across a couple of small buildings, one a restaurant, straddling the path:

Mountainside Restaurant 三玉亭 -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — 1/350 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image datanearby photos
Mountainside Restaurant
三玉亭

We stopped for a juice, and to chat with the lady. She was 86, and the fourth generation of her family to own/run the little restaurant. The shrine owns the land, but for whatever reason, the family has these buildings. The building across the path was her house; she had been born there.

I found out later, from another such living-on-the-mountain lady, that there were 18 of these homesteads on shrine property. (The other lady was 72 years old, and also been born in a little house alongside the gate-filled path.)

because it was paved/stepped the whole way, You Can't Really Call It “Hiking” but it was steep nevertheless -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — 1/60 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image datanearby photos
because it was paved/stepped the whole way,
You Can't Really Call It “Hiking”
but it was steep nevertheless
Portrait-Mode Vertical Desktop-Background Versions
1050×1680  ·  1200×1920  ·  1600×2560     
Fox #14,032 of 302,874 -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/320 sec, f/5, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Fox
#14,032 of 302,874

There were fox idols everywhere, usually decorated with a weather-worn bib of some sort. I think they represent guardians or the like, but there were so many that I sometimes felt worried that Moses would come smite the whole place. These temple/shrine things are cultural to me – not religious – just as they are for most Japanese as well, but I suspect that at this location, there are more than usual for whom it is religious. (Regardless of my own feelings, I always treat these places with respect; I wouldn't want to offend those for whom it does have meaning.)

Not the Stairway to Heaven but at the time, it starts to feel that long -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — 1/640 sec, f/5, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Not the Stairway to Heaven
but at the time, it starts to feel that long

I mentioned in Part 1 that you sometimes saw sets of orange gates off in the distance; what I failed to mention was the “distance” was sometimes vertical as well as lateral, so sometimes you got views like this:

Some Other Path -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/60 sec, f/1.4, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Some Other Path
Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 22 mm — 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos

We were treated to this extra view because we left the beaten path (so to speak) to take a sub-path to the geocache that I mentioned in Part 1. We were looking for The Guardian Fox cache, hidden in 2003 by a couple of guys from Kyoto. We found it easily, just like at least (according to the logs at that link) 60 people before us....

Checking Out the Treasure -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 22 mm — 1/320 sec, f/4, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Checking Out the Treasure
Figurine from Holland -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — 1/250 sec, f/4, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Figurine from Holland

On the way to the shrine, we'd stopped by a store and picked up a couple of Hello Kitty keychain figurines, and a small jar of Ramune candies. We placed these in the cache, and took back with us a few things from among the small collection inside. Anthony picked a small keychain with a picture of a Chinese vase, and a (pre-Euro) coin from what looks to be a European country. I picked a tiny toy carabiner that I now have clipped to my camera case.

We carefully put everything back, and returned to the main path.

Not far from the geocache is a crossroads where several paths cross, and one of the few places we found that offered a nice view of southern Kyoto...

View From Halfway Up -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640 — map & image datanearby photos
View From Halfway Up

(The elevated expressway you can see in the distance is the No. 2 Kyoto-Osaka Expressway that I wrote about last year.)

There were (like everywhere else) little sub-shrines all around, including at the junction area. I snapped this next picture there, and I'm not sure why because it really has nothing to offer, but for some reason, I really like it...

Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos

Having accomplished the goal of finding the geocache “treasure”, and lacking a map or any particular idea on what to do next, I let Anthony pick which path we should take from the crossroads. He picked one that looked somewhat dark and foreboding....

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here ( just joking ) -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here
( just joking )

It quickly brightened up, and turned out to be quite nice. I trailed Anthony for a while, snapping pics....

Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.6, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos

We eventually came upon a really interesting area that I'll have to write about another time, but let's just say that there were a lot of foxes....

Guardian Fox -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.6, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
Guardian Fox

Continued here...


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