JLPT and Sightseeing at the Fushimi Inari Jinja (伏見稲荷大社)

Today me and some of the other exchange students from Ritsumeikan went to Fushimi, right outside of Kyoto, to take the JLPT 2 (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) there.

Though it lasted until nearly 16:30, some of us decided to go sightseeing after the test, since the place called Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) is right next to the Fushimi train station. 

It took only about 30 minutes to get there from Nijyou station, but somehow it really felt like being in the countryside.

Inari Jinja is known for its many gates, or torii

The red gates

At first glance the gates seems to be all red, but if you turn around you'll see that all of them has got Japanese inscriptions.

A lamp lighting up the kanjis on one of the gates

Inari Jinja is devoted to the fox-kami, and therefore you can see a lot of fox statues here. Besides this, people who want to worship for wealth and so on also has the opportunity to draw their own image of the fox and then write their wishes on the backside.

Cute foxes with wishes written on the backside

In front of one of the gateways

These gateways goes all the way up the mountain side. But since we came there a bit late, it was already starting to get dark so we decided not go that far. Then again, that is a good reason to go there on another occasion:)

One of the Inari-foxes.

Shadows of the torii

After our visit to Inari Jinja, we went to have dinner together in a small restaurant we found along the way. Even though we all were tired after the long day, it was nice to spend the afternoon together doing sightseeing together in Kyoto.

Kathleen ready for dinner!

Part of the dinner menu..

About Anette
Anette came to Japan as an exchange student in 2010, met the love of her life and got stuck. From her base in Tokyo she writes about her experiences as a full-time worker in Tokyo and about her travels in Japan and abroad. She's a free-spirited adventurer who enjoys both the great outdoors and her urban lifestyle.