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Written by Alex Bruemmer

The weekdays may have been for studying, but weekends were for wandering.

I am not an early bird by any means so most of my weekends got started slow.
This particular day, I had no plans in mind so I enjoyed a good sleep-in before heading
out to get myself lunch. It's a short walk from my apartment to one of my favorite
restaurants, a straight shot for about ten minutes before taking a left. I ordered my usual,
a large mabushi bowl. Steak, rice, broth, wasabi, green onion, and an oolong tea. It was
warm and filling, perfect for feeling snug in the slight drizzle outside. Having eaten, I
decided on what I wanted to do with my day and looked up directions to Fushimi Inari
Taisha.

The train takes about twenty minutes so I threw on some headphones and
played some music while I watched the countryside pass by. Fushimi Inari station is
cutely decorated to match the shrine, with bright vermillion paint on the supports to
mirror the torii gates. I walked up to the main shrine from the left, passing through the
street food vendors and making my way over to the main shrine.

Fushimi Inari is always busy with people at the bottom, and with the drizzle, it
was a small sea of umbrellas. The trick is that not many people bother to climb past trail
marker one, about twenty minutes up the mountain. From there the amount of people
drop off by the marker until it is just you, the torii gates, and the wildlife. I spent some
time watching a crow hop around between the gates, looking for a nice spot to settle
down.

From there it was about forty more minutes to the summit. It's a rewarding
experience to make it to the top so I like to take a bit of time to savor it (and catch my
breath because those stairs are no joke!) before making my way back down. I like to
take the opposite path back down the mountain. It is still lined with the vermillion torii
gates but far less populated. Instead of returning you to the main shrine, this trail drops
you on a side street that flows back to the main grounds. This side street happens to
have one of my favorite statues in Kyoto… a pile of frogs. Dare I say the frogs are my
favorite part of the whole journey.

I decided to close out my day at a small matcha cafe because the ice-cream
seemed too delicious to resist before heading back to the station. Despite having hiked it
multiple times, Mount Inari has me coming back.