Or how we accidentally climbed a mountain.
Today we set off on a side excursion in which we will take a bullet train to Kyoto. for 2 days. We were originally planning on staying in a capsule hotel for the novelty, but there was very little availability; no single place had 7 capsules available. I ended up booking another dorm style house, which ended up being cheaper per person than the capsule hotels would have been.
It was a pleasant morning to leave on a journey. However, with everyone being tired; the trains being crowded; and the process of getting 7 tickets for the shinkansen being a mess, tensions were quite high.
Turns out waiting to get the tickets at the station was a bad idea, as seating for the upcoming trains was limited, and the machines would only accept paying with cash. Many of us (including me) didn't have enough, so we had to track down an international ATM.
But, ultimately we got everything sorted out and were able to get on a very fast train.
I ended up in an aisle seat, so I didn't have a great view out the windows, but overall the trip was pleasant. I did catch a tiny glimpse of Mt Fuji on the way there.
After arriving, we had to take another train 1 stop to our station, which was enough to take us completely out of the touristy areas.
The walk to our stay was through another sleep neighborhood, which we all really liked. IT felt like we were in the "Real" part of Japan.
The stay ending being ridiculously nice for the price. It wasn't ready for us to stay yet, but we could drop off our luggage for storage and come back later.
We set back out to make our way to the first shrine visit of the day, Fushimi Inari.
I arrived at the entrance of the Inari shrine, which was super crowded with tourists. We decided to get dinner first, and went into the little shopping street nearby.
We ended up finding a run down hole in the wall Chinese restaurant, which is how you can tell it's good.
It was indeed good. Kaarage, gyoza, and ramen. Yummy.
After we completed our meal, and determined what pokemon type we all are, we returned to Fushimi Inari and began exploring the area. It was not any less crowded, unfortunately.
Mood (It probably did)
As we made our way through the main temple area and into the procession of gates path, it didn't really seem like the crowds were thinning at all. There were at lest 2 student tour groups going through with us, and while I'm glad they were having a good time, they were also definitely activating my grumpy old man subroutine.
Dang kids!
We came to an intersection where the main path continued to the left, but there was a side path that went into a quieter forest area, and we decided to follow it for a bit, mainly just for a break from the crowds.
And no, we did not try and read what the sign actually said.
So refreshing! so quite! Almost immediately we were completely alone on the trail, and I think we all agreed that this was much more our speed.
We decided to keep going a little longer to see where this new path might lead us.
Somehow Jackson and I had lost the rest of the group as they had all gone ahead, and we were starting to get a bit worried about how far we had gone without seeing them, but we did eventually catch up. They had found a more rugged shrine area with lots of little mini shrines to various things.
I remember seeing some areas like this the last time I was here, but the further we went the more there was, and some of it was REALLY old.
It was also nice being able to be fully immersed in a bamboo forest like this.
We found a spring, though I was not quite brave enough to partake of the free rusty pipe water.
There was some nice moss though
We continued on through the seemingly endless maze of shrines.
At this point, it was starting to get dark, so I switched to using my smartphone for pictures, since it is better at point and shoot in low light conditions
We encountered an old man walking along the path, which had become more of an access road at this point. He we very excited to tell us about the persimmon trees he was cultivating, as well as something that was slightly different from melons.
He also confirmed that if we kept following this path, it would eventually lead us to the shrine at the top of the mountain, meeting up with the main path. We decided that we were in too deep to even consider turning back at this point, so we decided to just go for it.
We had not originally planned to spend the entire day at Fushimi Inari, but between visiting other crowded touristy areas and here, the choice was obvious.
We found a vending machine, where Phil had the best grape juice that existed. It was crisp.
We continued on, arriving at the parking lot of some private residence that also had a woodcarving business. There was another sections of shrines that said there was a public bathroom, so we investigated, but at this point of the night it was very spooky.
There was also another waterfall.
Past the house, the path started to get serious, and I think some of us were starting to regret our life choices, but we powered through regardless.
It was a hell of a struggle; and there was a point where I was having to take a short rest after every step. But we made all made it.
Jackson Tyler and I made it up first, and took a rest on some not particularly chair shaped rocks near the tori at the top of the stairs. While waiting for the rest to catch up, we encountered some travelers from New Zealand, who sat with us for awhile taking about their travels and the state of US politics.
After everyone gathered, it was just a short non vertical walk to get to the shrine at the top of Mt. Inari.
Arriving at the temple, there was a surprisingly large number of people still there, considering how it was completely dark at this point.
After making a donation, and taking a celebratory selfie, we started making our way back down along the main tori lined path. There wasn't much of a view, but I figured there would probably be an overlook somewhere on the way down.
At this point, my camera was really struggling, so a lot of my photos came out like ghost pictures.
The tori path had a much more gradual slope, so not only did we climb the mountain, we did it on the hard mode path.
MOTH!
After rounding a corner, we came upon the promised overlook. The city at night we beautiful, and I don't think I was able to capture it in pictures, but I tried my best.
Continuing on. This is where I took one of my favorite pictures of the trip.
I neglected to mention this, but Wally did not join us on the climbing adventure, and has in fact been waiting for us at the main shrine area this entire time.
So anyway, we met up with him and started making our way back to the train station.
Some of us decided to try and find ice cream or something before heading back, so we went on another side excursion on the now mostly empty nighttime streets. It was nice seeing them without tourists; which has become a common sentiment during this entire trip.
We found a strawberry type dessert vendor, and got various strawberry type desserts. I got a strawberry milk, which was super tasty.
With that, we headed back to our accommodation. Compared to our stay in Tokyo, this place was basically a resort room.
I took a quick tour
Jackson found the game console, and started trying to play a party game in Japanese
Upstairs had real beds
I pulled rank and claimed the tatami room for myself, but it turns one futon is not enough for my big bones. However, if I stack 2 futons on top of each other, that works.
Also, this place had a really big bathtub, which was very nice.