Japan Series! - Fushimi Inari Taisha

     Now that I've explained my extended leave of absence, let's jump right back into the Japan series!

     Of all the shrines we visited on our trip to Japan, Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto was my personal favorite.

The torii gate at the entrance.

     Upon approaching this beautiful shrine, we could immediately see the color palette used throughout a lot of the site - red and white complemented by the green of large bamboo trees as well as other plants I couldn't identify. The huge red torii gate that greets visitors at the entrance was far from being the last one we would see there. In fact, the entire shrine is home to thousands of torii gates, many funded by donations from the patrons of the shrine.

View of one set of torii gates from above.

     The multitudes of torii gates are in several areas lined up one after the other, creating an experience almost like walking through a tunnel of red painted wood or, in some places, grey stone, with glimpses of the surrounding forest showing through the gaps between the gates. The entire path winding through all the gates can take hours to traverse, but we were limited to only one hour. Peek-sensei advised us to walk as far as we could in 30 minutes, then turn around and retrace our steps in order to meet at the front torii gate at the designated time. I wanted to take my time, see the sights, and snap some pictures, so Billy and I didn't manage to make it very far before our time was up. (Billy is determined to go back on our next trip to Japan and walk all the way through, no matter how long it takes!)

This is about the farthest point we reached.

     Another notable aspect of Fushimi Inari Taisha was the fox statues that were located throughout the shrine's ground. As I understand, these represent fox spirits, or kitsune, which are one of the many types of animals considered "messengers of gods" in Shinto beliefs. The kitsune in particular are closely associated with Fushimi Inari Taisha itself. The various fox statues we found there were all beautifully made and looked a little imposing.

I like how this one seems to be looking right at you!

     Billy and I also stopped for a moment to sample some dried fruit at a vendor's stand in an open square. It was delicious, but with our limited budget, we couldn't find a package small enough for us to afford. -_-'

When people come to pray at the shrine, they pull on the red and white ribbons to ring the bells at the top.

 

At this fountain near the shrine entrance, visitors wash their hands and mouths as a purification ritual.

Some of the smaller shrine structures.

     On the way back towards the entrance, we noticed that the backs of many of the smaller red wooden torii gates were inscribed with kanji and hiragana. Peek-sensei later explained that they listed donors who paid for each gate to be erected.

Here you can see the inscriptions on the backs of the torii gates.

     When Billy and I arrived back at the front torii gate, some of the others from our group had already made it back, and were saying goodbye to a group of Japanese people we'd never met before. One of our friends turned around and pushed a small, warm object into my hand, saying something along the lines of "You've gotta try this!" After tasting the food, I recognized it as takoyaki, which I had tried before in the States, when my other Japanese teacher, Miho-sensei, had made it for us to try in class. Takoyaki tastes kind of like gooey bread with chunks of cooked octopus inside, and it was delicious both times I tried it. Only after I had eaten it did my friends inform me that they had been given the food by the group of strangers they had just been talking to. Of course, I wouldn't normally recommend eating food received from strangers, but we all turned out okay. ^_~

A Shinto priest.

A miko, or shrine maiden.

     And that pretty much sums up my experience at my favorite shrine in Japan, Fushimi Inari Taisha. Thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for some more of my favorite shrines and temples!

P.S. - Click here for the full list of Japan series posts!

Japan Series! - Japanese Temples and Shrines

     We're finally getting around to the sight-seeing portion of my Japan trip series! One thing we saw a lot of were sites of religious significance to the Japanese people. Japan's two major religions are Shinto and Buddhism, so that means lots of shrines and temples!
 

Byodoin, a temple in Kyoto.

     The major difference between the two types of sites is what religion each is related to. Temples are devoted to Buddhism, a religion revering Buddha and his teachings, which is popular in many Asian countries. Shrines are instead associated with Shinto, a polytheistic religion is which followers worship many gods, spirits, and ancestors. Shinto is a native Japanese religion which has mostly stayed unique to Japan.

Itsukushima, a shrine on the island of Miyajima.

     For me, it was a bit difficult to tell the temples and shrines apart. However, certain clues sometimes made it easier. For example, if there were statues of Buddha, it was obviously a temple.

Buddha and other statues at Nanzenji, a temple in Kyoto.

     Although both types of sites sometimes had statues of humans or animals as guardians.

Kitsune (fox) statue at Fushimi Inari Taisha, a shrine in Kyoto.

Phoenix on the roof of the Phoenix Hall of Byodoin.

     Pagodas usually meant temples...

Pagoda at Koofukuji, a temple in Nara.

     ...while torii gates often indicated shrines.

Huge torii gate in front of Fushimi Inari Taisha.

     Both had beautiful architecture and gorgeous gardens.

Building and garden of Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavilion), a temple in Kyoto.

     The sites were all really beautiful in their own unique ways. But for me, my visits to these sites were about more than just sight-seeing. Because I don't follow either of these religions, I did not participate in religious rituals or worship at these places. But I found it fascinating to learn more about these belief systems and religious sites through direct observation. I feel that learning more about another person's religious beliefs (or any beliefs, for that matter) makes it easier to relate to and understand them. Just making the effort to learn shows that you're not ethnocentric and bigoted, which is a major stereotype of Christians that I believe we need to overcome. And if one is secure in one's own beliefs, exposure to other belief systems should strengthen that faith, not weaken it.

Couple praying at Kasuga Taisha, a shrine in Nara.

     Over the course of the two-week trip, our group visited six shrines and eleven temples, in addition to some other sight-seeing. Yes, we were basically speed-walking a lot of the time, trying to keep up with Peek-sensei. XD I actually would've like to take it a little slower and have time to take more pictures. But I still have a ton of pictures and experiences to share, so look forward to the next several posts covering some of my favorite temples and shrines!

     P.S. A complete list of posts in my Japan series can be found in the Intro post.

     PPS. For a more detailed explanation of the differences between shrines and temples, check out this post from The Japan Guy.

Japan Series! - Gundam Café!

            Today’s post features a specific place we visited that I thought would be of particular interest to my readers – the Gundam Café! Even though I’ve already talked a lot about food and restaurants, I thought this one deserved special attention. ^_^

            Near the end of our trip, we visited Akihabara. This district has been known for electronics for quite a while, but more recently has also become the best place to buy anime and related products in Tokyo. I’ll go into more detail about the other things we did in Akihabara (including Club Sega!) in later posts. But for today, I’m going to focus on Gundam Café.

            We saw it as soon as we stepped out of the train station, on the right-hand side of the open square.
 

Gundam Café - It was instantly eye-catching, as you can tell.

            Peek-sensei wanted us to see a few other things in Akihabara before dinner, but when we were done she asked if we wanted to try the Gundam Café, since some of us had shown such excitement over it. The group ended up splitting, because some of them wanted to go elsewhere, but Billy and I, Peek-sensei, and a few other students decided to stand in line at the Café.
 

This person-sized model Gundam stands in front of the Café. His sign says
“Sawaranaide kudasai” which means “Please do not touch.”

            The line was outside the restaurant, as you can see in the first picture. A hostess came along and asked if we wanted the smoking or non-smoking section. We told her non-smoking, and she said there would be a wait. If I remember correctly, she said it would be about 30 minutes. We stood there a few more minutes, but eventually some of the students were so hungry that they decided they didn’t want to wait any longer, and decided to go somewhere else. Peek-sensei went with them, so Billy and I were left as the only part of our group there.

Sign outside the Café. Yeah, I had a lot of time to take pictures while we were
standing in line. XD

            After a few more minutes, we thought to ask the hostess how long the wait was for the smoking section. It turned out it would only be a couple of minutes, so we discussed it and since we were both so keen on seeing the Café (and were also pretty hungry by then), we decided to tell her we wanted the smoking section. A few minutes later a hostess came and led us to a table and to our surprise, no one was even smoking in the smoking section! I don’t know if that’s normal or if we just got lucky that day, but if you ever go there, it’s worth a shot. Just make sure you can handle a little smoke if you aren’t so lucky.

Billy holding the Gundam Café menu.

            As you can see from the above picture, the atmosphere inside was really neat. There were a few other interesting aspects of the décor…

This was printed on several sections of the wall, inside and outside of the restaurant.

I found the “Return Slot” (trash can) really amusing.

            Predictably, Billy ordered chicken and potato chips. XD He’s not very adventurous when it comes to food. I have to coax him a lot to get him to try new foods, and since he had been doing a lot of that so far on the trip, I figured I’d let this one slide. ;)
 

Billy’s chicken and chips. Note the shaped garnish.

            Most of the time when we were in Japan, I took every opportunity to try food I couldn’t have in the States. But when I saw this, I knew I had to have it…

Gundam shield-shaped pizza!!

            Yes, pizza is a very mundane thing to eat in Japan. And I actually ate pizza more than once while we were in the country. But this one actually tasted more like what I’m used to having in the States. And the shape was just too cool to resist!

            Good food in a fun environment perfect for anime geeks. If you’re in the Akihabara area of Tokyo, I would definitely recommend checking out this restaurant!

Japan Series! - Food of Japan (Part 2)

Hi again! Today I’m going to finish telling you about all the amazing, delicious food we got to eat in Japan! I’ll talk about how some foreign foods are eaten in Japan, as well as our breakfasts and snacks. (If you want to hear about more traditional Japanese foods and some of the distinctive characteristics of Japanese restaurants, check out Part 1)

Foreign food in Japan

            Even the non-Japanese foods we ate in Japan tasted a little (or in some cases, a lot) different from the same foods in the States. I think the only exceptions were chicken and French fries.

Apparently in Japan chicken tastes a lot like candy. (Not really... inside joke.)

           Billy was actually really happy to have that ketchup. He’s addicted to the stuff, and we hardly saw any outside of that one restaurant. Seriously, when they brought this out, I think he almost cried tears of joy.

            Even McDonald’s and Burger King tasted different. We mainly went there for convenience, but also to rib a friend of Billy’s, who warned him not to visit anywhere so mundane while visiting an exotic foreign country. ;)

Billy says "Hi Matt!"

            I did try an interesting new soda at McDonalds, called Qoo. I have no idea how to pronounce it (Kwu? Ku? Kyu?), but it was pretty good.
 

Cheeseburger, fries, and Qoo.

 Because of the long and usually close interaction between Chinese and Japanese cultures, a lot of originally Chinese food has been incorporated into Japanese culture. One of my favorites was gyoza (which we in the States usually call dumplings or pot stickers) – pork and other ingredients wrapped in a crescent-shaped shell. (Apparently they are called jiǎozi in China, according to Wikipedia.)

Gyoza.

          Another delicious Chinese food was sesame seed balls (Japanese – goma dango; Chinese – jian dui). They were made from some kind of dough filled with sweet red bean paste and covered with sesame seeds.
 

Sesame seed balls.

            And finally, there were the eggrolls (which I think most of you will be familiar with). Although I’ve tried all of these dishes in the States previously, they tasted so much better in Japan.

Eggrolls. BTW, these and the sesame seed balls were served at the restaurant in the Hakone Open Air Museum. The food there was all so delicious!

 In Akihabara one day, we ate dinner at a restaurant just outside the train station, which claimed to be French. I’ve never eaten food that was supposedly French before, so I was a little surprised to see the meal I chose, which was a BLT and a delicious chocolate cupcake. However, I was even more surprised when I noticed that the menu board had to explain (in Japanese) what the letters in “BLT” stood for. It struck me as funny, but I guess if people in Japan don’t eat that very much, it makes sense that they wouldn’t know what it is. Once I got my “BLT,” though, the “bacon” turned out to be more like ham. XD But it was still pretty good.

My BLT... or HLT...

Yummy chocolate cuppycake. <3

 Curry is originally from Thailand, I believe, but I’ve seen lots of anime characters eat it, so I had to try it in Japan. Of course, I’ve only tried it once before then, and that was in Arkansas, so I have no idea how authentic it was. But the curry I ate in Japan was very different. The curry I tried in Arkansas was like a really chunky stew, with big chunks of veggies and chicken in a spicy broth. Japanese curry was more like spicy mush. Don’t get me wrong; it still tasted pretty good. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.

Curry and rice

            Italian food was what surprised me the most out of Japan’s foreign foods. We tried pizza and pasta at a few different places, but it almost always tasted very different from what we’re used to in the States. (I think the pizza I had at the Gundam Café was the closest to tasting like American pizza.) Peek-sensei told us that Japanese chefs go to Italy to be trained to cook authentic Italian food, so the Italian restaurants we went to in Japan were supposedly more authentic than the American Italian restaurants we’re used to.

Breakfasts

            At the first hotel we stayed at, White Hotel in Kyoto, the staff was wonderful and served us a huge breakfast every morning. What was on the main plate varied from day to day, but it contained small portions of a variety of foods, usually including meat, veggies, fruit, and tofu. Every meal was served with milk (room-temperature, which most of us Americans found a little hard to get used to), a banana, and a small bowl of salad. For the first few days, they served what they called “Western-style” breakfast, despite the fact that most of it didn’t look like anything I’d ever eaten for breakfast.

"Western-style" breakfast

            After a few days, they asked if we would like to try “Japanese-style” breakfast, so of course we said we’d love to. When they served it, we began to see the difference between the two. The “Western-style” breakfast was served with toast and a big basket of sweet breads and pastries, and we were offered toast as well.

This bread = yum.

            The “Japanese-style” breakfast was instead served with a bowl of rice and a bowl of miso soup.

Of course, this was delicious as well. In fact, for a while after I returned home, I couldn't eat miso soup in restaurants here because it just didn't taste right. Japan had spoiled me. ^_^

After our week in Kyoto, we traveled to Tokyo, and sadly our new hotel didn’t serve breakfast. Peek-sensei suggested walking to Lawson, a convenience store about a block from the hotel, to get breakfast each morning. Once or twice I got something warm and fresh-cooked, but I usually gave into the temptation to eat snack foods for breakfast…

Snacks

Lawson is awesome. I miss Lawson.

Lawson had the most amazing mini chocolate chip scones I’ve ever tasted. I wish I’d taken a picture. Actually I wish they sold them in the States so I could eat them every day. We also tried taiyaki – fish-shaped custard-filled snack cakes – which were really good as well.

Peek-sensei was always carrying around rice crackers and/or some kind of snack mix, which everyone but me seemed to like. The flavor reminded me of Chex Mix, which I don’t like, but if you like Chex Mix, you should definitely try it.

Personally, I prefer sweet snack foods. I admit, I have a bit of a sweet tooth. (Read: HUGE sweet tooth!) Some other sweet snacks I enjoyed were mochi (pounded rice) balls and anything green tea flavored. (I assumed the flavoring couldn’t contain that much caffeine…)

Last but certainly not least… Everywhere we went, we kept seeing soft-serve ice cream being sold. We finally tried it while waiting for the pirate ship cruise on Lake Ashi, and it was AMAZING. Better than American ice cream, I’d say. And coming from someone who used to work at Dairy Queen (and get a Blizzard nearly every day), that means something.

The amazing Billy with the amazing ice cream.

             Aaaaaand that pretty much sums up the food portion of our trip! Check back soon for more on Japan, including sight-seeing destinations, shopping, and travel tips! ^_~