On Sunday of last weekend, we got a slightly later start on our sightseeing than on Saturday. Kayoko stayed at home studying again. Side note: that girl can study! Every night this week she's been across the table from me, before and after dinner, with her books open, reading, and making notes. Otoosan and I walked to Korien station, Okaasan left after us, and biked there. We ended up arriving at the station around the same time. We took the Keihan line trains to Tofukuji station. (東福寺, とおふくじ) There are lots of smaller temples surrounding the station, and on the way to the biggest in the area which is Tofukuji Temple. The smaller temples and shrines were all open that day, and were selling souvenirs, tea, and sweets to the huge crowd.
The area, especially Tofukuji Temple, is known as being on of the best places to view the color-changing autumn leaves. The Tsutenkyo Bridge, which arches over a small stream and many maple trees, is the most famous part of the temple, and was packed with people with all sorts of picture taking equipment, from large, professional cameras to cell phones. The bridge is actually two bridges, running parallel to each other. This is the first place I've actually seen a significant number of trees with yellow, red, and orange leaves. Surprisingly, the parts of the temple complex where the trees hadn't changed yet were ignored by the Japanese viewers. However, to me, they were just as beautiful as the brilliant colors in the rest of the complex. The entire area had the feeling of a fairytale forest, with sunlight streaming through the branches and leaves to dapple on the moss covered ground. Speaking of sunlight, the weather was much improved from Saturday's rain, but it was still very chilly due to the strong wind.
We made our way out of the Tofukuji area, and walked to the next stop on our list: Fushimi-inari. Fushimi-inari station is four train stops away from Tofukuji station, but we meandered through the streets, and it didn't seem to take as long to go from one to the other on foot as it does by train. Fushimi-inari is also quite famous, it's dedicated to the Kitsune or Foxes. However, you might know it better as the mountain that is covered (I'm not exaggerating here, it is literally covered) in Tori Gates. Tori gates being those large orange and black, square arches seen at shrines all over Japan. Okaasan and I lost Otoosan for a while, but we finally met up again, and headed up the mountain.
So if any of you have seen the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, then you remember the part where the little girl runs through the seemingly-neverending path under the tori gates. Fushimi-inari is that place. Everywhere you turn, there's another path running under more tori gates. On the way up Okaasan and I followed Otoosan, who seemed to magically know which path to take to get to the top of the mountain. Which took a really long time, by the way, and many, many steps. Oh, and we found three kittens near the top of the mountain. Two were friendly and let us take pictures and pet them, but the third ran away behind some of the many small shrines set up just off the paths, all over the mountain. Some of these areas looked like miniature villages made up of shrines.
On the way back, Otoosan practically flew down, while Okaasan and I took our time. We soon regretted this though, as we had difficulty when we came to the many crossroads, which tori shrouded path we had come up. It was felt like a maze at times! Well, we eventually made our way to the bottom, and then had to find Otoosan again! When we did, we did a bit of shopping, and then found an udon restaurant for lunch. Otoosan picked out the restaurant! Both days this weekend! So, clearly I'm not the only one who likes udon! :D
Speaking of udon, though, I think I've eaten too much of it, because I'm becoming an udon snob. It's sad really, because I used to just love udon, and eat it whenever I got the chance. And now, I've started noticing differences in the soups or the texture of the noodles, and preferring some to others. For instance, the noodles at this shop weren't as firm or chewy as the ones at the shop we ate at on Saturday. And Tuesday night we had instant udon at home for dinner, and I noticed that the noodles were much shorter than those at the restaurants, and that they were almost too chewy. Argh! Why can't I just enjoy the yumminess of udon? Why did I have to develop preferences? If I hadn't developed these preferences, I wouldn't ever get disappointed by a bowl of udon. And really, who wants to be disappointed by a bowl of delicious noodles?
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