Andrea and David's trip to Japan, July 2011

Day 20: 5-8-11 Kyoto - (Day 19 Day 21 - birdlist - bird gallery

We took a fairly easy day. Took the bus into the centre and bought our Skinkansen tickets for the morrow. Pottered around. Manicure. Then decided to try and find the bus for the Fushimi-Inari Taisha shrine in the south-east of the city. This transpired to be virtually impossible so we walked down the river and along a drainage canal, passing several fine small gardens, buttterflies and not least a lot of herons on the river

This shrine is the main shrine in a particular branch of Shinto and comprises a 2 km walk up a hillside through scarlet painted gates, which form a tunnel, passing many small shrines mostly dedicated to foxes. The effect is amazing. The gates are wooden and are replaced as they rot. We hit rain at the top of the walk, only the third time we had any serious rain in our three weeks in Japan.

We walked back to the city centre and found a Korean bbq, which was fine, strolled further though the city to catch a bus back to our district.