Senbon Torii
Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto, Japan
The touristy bit...
Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社, Fushimi Inari Taisha) is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for the thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind it's main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds.
Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes are thought to be Inari's messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds. Fushimi Inari Shrine has ancient origins, predating the capital's move to Kyoto in 794.
While the primary reason most foreign visitors come to Fushimi Inari Shrine is to explore the mountain trails and the double corridor torii gates, the shrine buildings themselves are also attractive. At the shrine's entrance stands the Romon Gate, which was donated in 1589 by the famous leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Behind stands the shrine's main hall (honden) where visitors and locals pay respect to the resident deity by making a small offering.
At the very back of the shrine's main grounds is the entrance to the torii gate-covered hiking trail, which starts with two dense parallel rows of gates called Senbon Torii ("thousands of torii gates"). The torii gates along the entire trail are donations by individuals and companies, and you will find the donator's name and the date of the donation inscribed on the back of each gate. The cost starts around ¥400,000 for a small sized gate and increases to over ¥1,000,000 for a large gate.
The hike to the summit of the mountain and back takes about 2-3 hours, however, visitors are free to walk just as far as they wish before turning back. Along the way, there are multiple smaller shrines with stacks of miniature torii gates that were donated by visitors with smaller budgets. There are also a few restaurants along the way, which offer locally themed dishes such as Inari Sushi and Kitsune Udon ("Fox Udon"), both featuring pieces of aburaage (fried tofu), said to be a favourite food of foxes.
After about a 30-45 minute ascent and a gradual decrease in the density of torii gates, visitors will reach the Yotsutsuji intersection roughly half way up the mountain, where some nice views over Kyoto can be enjoyed, and then the trail splits into a circular route to the summit. Many hikers only venture as far as here, as the trails do not offer much variation beyond this point and the gate density decreases further.
For the photographers...
Having mis-timed our trip to the bamboo forest the previous day (too many tourists) we went early. The easiest way to get there is to take the train from Kyoto Station, a journey of about 10 minutes. Both the Keihan Main line and the JR Nara line stop close to the shrine but we took the JR Nara as it's station is literally across the road from the Romon Gate and the start of the shrine complex. Even at 7:30am there were signs of coach parties arriving and so we headed straight for the torii gates. It took about 10 minutes to reach Senbon torii and we passed through some pretty big ones en route.
The day was overcast with rain predicted later on in the morning and here lies the difficulty in photographing these things... I don't want to make excuses from the off but for anyone thinking of following in our footsteps... forewarned is forearmed! The double row of torii gates are at best guess, 8ft tall and 8ft wide and very tightly arranged and surprisingly dark once you step inside making handheld shots difficult if you want any decent depth of field. You'll notice that all the uprights are blank, that's because the Japanese calligraphy is on the other side and best seen from the top of the corridor but then you're likely to meet the hoards of people coming up behind you.
It only takes a couple of minutes to walk the length of Senbon torii although I stopped every couple of yards trying to capture these cliché interiors. However, all is not lost and after exiting the Senbon torii, the other gates start to thin out as does the number of tourists. It always amazes me the number of people who can't be bothered to go the whole nine yards when visiting such places, after all if you've travelled thousands of miles to get there then you might as well see the whole shebang! I reckon only 10% made it to the top that day, which is really where this little blog ends. No sooner had we summited then it began to rain and boy did it rain... our one and only bad day. The coach parties of tourists never made it beyond the double gates for they hightailed it back down, umbrellas up every last one of them back to the coaches. I never got a second chance on the way down due to the bobbing flow of umbrellas but at least I'd got something in the can on the way up. If I could shoot it all again... I'd go in the summer months when the light might favour the early start, use a faster lens and take a tripod, just in case you get the chance to use it.
Senbon Torii
Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto, Japan
The touristy bit...
Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社, Fushimi Inari Taisha) is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for the thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind it's main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds.
Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes are thought to be Inari's messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds. Fushimi Inari Shrine has ancient origins, predating the capital's move to Kyoto in 794.
While the primary reason most foreign visitors come to Fushimi Inari Shrine is to explore the mountain trails and the double corridor torii gates, the shrine buildings themselves are also attractive. At the shrine's entrance stands the Romon Gate, which was donated in 1589 by the famous leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Behind stands the shrine's main hall (honden) where visitors and locals pay respect to the resident deity by making a small offering.
At the very back of the shrine's main grounds is the entrance to the torii gate-covered hiking trail, which starts with two dense parallel rows of gates called Senbon Torii ("thousands of torii gates"). The torii gates along the entire trail are donations by individuals and companies, and you will find the donator's name and the date of the donation inscribed on the back of each gate. The cost starts around ¥400,000 for a small sized gate and increases to over ¥1,000,000 for a large gate.
The hike to the summit of the mountain and back takes about 2-3 hours, however, visitors are free to walk just as far as they wish before turning back. Along the way, there are multiple smaller shrines with stacks of miniature torii gates that were donated by visitors with smaller budgets. There are also a few restaurants along the way, which offer locally themed dishes such as Inari Sushi and Kitsune Udon ("Fox Udon"), both featuring pieces of aburaage (fried tofu), said to be a favourite food of foxes.
After about a 30-45 minute ascent and a gradual decrease in the density of torii gates, visitors will reach the Yotsutsuji intersection roughly half way up the mountain, where some nice views over Kyoto can be enjoyed, and then the trail splits into a circular route to the summit. Many hikers only venture as far as here, as the trails do not offer much variation beyond this point and the gate density decreases further.
For the photographers...
Having mis-timed our trip to the bamboo forest the previous day (too many tourists) we went early. The easiest way to get there is to take the train from Kyoto Station, a journey of about 10 minutes. Both the Keihan Main line and the JR Nara line stop close to the shrine but we took the JR Nara as it's station is literally across the road from the Romon Gate and the start of the shrine complex. Even at 7:30am there were signs of coach parties arriving and so we headed straight for the torii gates. It took about 10 minutes to reach Senbon torii and we passed through some pretty big ones en route.
The day was overcast with rain predicted later on in the morning and here lies the difficulty in photographing these things... I don't want to make excuses from the off but for anyone thinking of following in our footsteps... forewarned is forearmed! The double row of torii gates are at best guess, 8ft tall and 8ft wide and very tightly arranged and surprisingly dark once you step inside making handheld shots difficult if you want any decent depth of field. You'll notice that all the uprights are blank, that's because the Japanese calligraphy is on the other side and best seen from the top of the corridor but then you're likely to meet the hoards of people coming up behind you.
It only takes a couple of minutes to walk the length of Senbon torii although I stopped every couple of yards trying to capture these cliché interiors. However, all is not lost and after exiting the Senbon torii, the other gates start to thin out as does the number of tourists. It always amazes me the number of people who can't be bothered to go the whole nine yards when visiting such places, after all if you've travelled thousands of miles to get there then you might as well see the whole shebang! I reckon only 10% made it to the top that day, which is really where this little blog ends. No sooner had we summited then it began to rain and boy did it rain... our one and only bad day. The coach parties of tourists never made it beyond the double gates for they hightailed it back down, umbrellas up every last one of them back to the coaches. I never got a second chance on the way down due to the bobbing flow of umbrellas but at least I'd got something in the can on the way up. If I could shoot it all again... I'd go in the summer months when the light might favour the early start, use a faster lens and take a tripod, just in case you get the chance to use it.