Today we decide to go to Fushimi Inari Shrine. It’s only two stops away by train.

Posters in the subway station remind travellers about metro etiquette. 🙂

The moment we get off the train, I know it was a mistake to come. It isn’t as though we’re there late in the day. It isn’t even 10:00 am.

There are SO many people here already. Hundreds are leaving; thousands are entering. All I see before me is a sea of heads.

Suddenly, I don’t want to go anymore – but we’ve made the effort, we’re there, we might as well see what there is to see.

Fushimi Inari Shrine has one thousand brightly painted tori gates creating a tunnel of orange .

Quite the spectacle …

…were it not for so many of us there all trying to get ahead.

This is a tiny break in the sea of people during which I capture this photo.

I decide I don’t want to go further so we step off that path and onto another and I think our discovery is much more beautiful than the one we leave behind.

We follow a small trail and some steps dug into the side of a slope and below we see this.

We’re not sure whether it’s a smaller, more private shrine that monks once used or whether it’s a graveyard of old tori gates that are laid to rest here.

The space is peaceful but not quiet. Birdcalls fall from the trees – loud and incessant and beautiful.

Moss covers almost everything, sparing two wooden rice spoons given as an offering at one of the shrines.

Another trail leads us to a bamboo grove.

Again, the noise of the thousands of people nearby is deadened and it feels as though we’re all alone. Us and the bamboo.

Through the bamboo grove I spy a farmer sharing his persimmon harvest with his neighbour over the fence. From where I’m standing I can hear her thanking him for the bag full of fruit.

The season for hanging persimmon to dry outside is here. I wonder whether that’s his plan for the rest of his bounty.

The bamboo grove keeps us busy for quite a while with things to discover .

We’re ready to leave but it’s a crush to exit the area.

Food stalls selling all manner of sweet and savory foods – most of which are on sticks – line the entrance / exit. I’m assailed by food smells and I’m very hungry at this time.

Lunch sounds incredibly good – but definitely not here.

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