A day out with the foxes. (Climbing Mt Inari)

Be prepared. There's going to be a lot of orange in this post. As well as foxes. And a very red-faced girl. The last may be most shocking of all. Oh and I get lost again. Twice. 

The trail to the top of Mt Inari, Fushimi Inari-taisha, is marked with a huge number of gates, torii, like the following:

I seemed to have been taking a number of these earlier photos with my sunglasses on. My bad. But I hope you get the point. 

The trail is littered with small shrines, effigies of foxes, memorial stones, and the occasional foodstall / boutique.  

The shrine at the entry to the path. 

The first 1km of the trail has quite some impressive photo opportunities. I got to Inari later than I originally intended, but I did get there before most of the tourists did. Yippee! 

This series of gates is around 1km into the trail. There are actually two parallel gates at this point, but some doZer was blocking one gate - so I opted to block the other. 

Haha!  You wouldn't know it, but this series if gates is different - about another km into the hike. I took a lot more pictures, but i tried to pick the best ones. (On a side note, as I'm writing this up, there is a baby crying. I did not realize that babies stayed at hostels. Or. More aptly put, people who have young babies go to hostels. Hmmm, maybe I'm lucky they don't restrict ages here.)

I've passed more and more toriis and, wham.  Finally, an awesome view!!

See. Awesome view of Kyoto. 

At the intersection I had just passed, I saw that they had soybean flour soft serve. 

Uhm, yeah, I want that in my mouth. Mind you, it's close to 8:30am at this time and it's well established that I like food. So, the possibility of soy bean ice cream in my belly is the most delightful thought that was floating around my head. It was so distracting, that I wandered up the wrong path and had to ask someone if I was going the right way.

I'll spare you this particular recount of my pantomime-ry skills because he actually got my drift quickly and set me straight. 

 

Gates gates gates. More gates. 

Then I made it to the top?

I went to the top of Mt Inari and all I got was this lousy sign. 

Perhaps because I was distraught from the lack of kapow or kazaam for the top of the hike, when I reached this intersection, I checked the trail map and went okay this must be that nice side trail that loops around and reconnects. 

So despite earlier being pissed at the map for not really being to scale or even making sense in terms of the turns, I took the path on the right. Less than a kilometer later, I realize, wait, it feels like I'm going in a completely different direction. And wait. Where's the soybean ice cream shop? :-( 

I'm sure that there was a sign that said that you were going onto another trail, but since I can't read Kanjis, I was pretty screwed. 

Lo and behold, google maps tells me I'm going to the other side of Mt Inari, where there is no train station and where I can peer down and see what looks like industrial operations. Ruh roh. Time to hoof it back up. 

I used to think I had a good sense of direction. Nope.  The foxes along the trail have been laughing at me the whole morning. So after double backing a few times, I've learned my lesson - ask for directions. 

So I made it to where the lightning bolt is indicating and I see not two paths, but 4 possible routes I can take. Luckily, there was a food stand with probably 8 people hanging around. So I put my skills to work. 

Me: sumi-masen? (Excuse me in Japanese) JR station? <pointing in one direction>

Bewildered older Japanese lady: <rattles off something, but clearly doesn't feel like she can help me. Or my red face scared her>

Me: <gesturing to the rest of the people> JR Station?

Crowd: <shaking heads and saying a lot of stuff I'm not getting>

Me: <pointing the way I came from and to the sky> up. <pointing the direction I thought was down and then to the ground> down?

Crowd: <5 people saying stuff simultaneously> <pointing to the direction completely opposite from what I thought was down >

Me: arigato!!!! Arigato!! <bowing and walking backwards>

A few hundred feet I ran across another gift shop and I ask JR? To the man behind the desk and he confirmed I was going the correct direction. Whew. 

I did this a couple more times and try to stay on track. Then I ran into a cute couple who had to be high school sweethearts and asked them the same. Turns out they didn't know that they were lost, too, and that took me almost a kilometer in the wrong direction. The couple had walked far ahead of me, then all of a sudden the girl comes running back towards me saying a lot of stuff, but mostly looking apologetic. Then she says JR and points in the direction we just came. Crap. I double back with the kids until we reach where I zigged when I should have zagged. Ugh. 

Oh you only think I look happy - I'm just relieved I made it back to the right path. 

...and to the entry pavilion, now teeming with loads of people. 

Hooray!! I can do it!