Today we have another picture that Ryan took when he visited Kanazawa. I’m not sure the exact location of these rocks in the Sea of Japan, but Ryan says they were between Kanazawa (金沢) and Wajima (輪島).
Update: We just got back from visiting Ishikawa Prefecture. During the trip I found out the name of these rocks is Hatagoiwa (機具岩) in Shikamachi (志賀町).
I recently picked up Foot-loose in Tokyo, not because I thought it would be useful (due to when it was written) but because I thought it would be fun to see what things were like along the Yamanote Line in the 1970s. The funny thing is many of the things the author, Jean Pearce, thought would quickly disappear are still here and many that were thought to be permanent fixtures are long gone.
The book is very interesting to read even though the contents are so dated. Perhaps the fact they are so dated makes it an even more enjoyable read. I read the whole book on the train (the Chuo Line, not the Yamanote Line) one day. The contents changed the way I think about many of the Yamanote Line stops.
The entry for Takadanobaba shows surprisingly few differences from the book’s era until today. Big Box, Omokage-bashi, Mizu Inari Jinja, Waseda University, Kansenen–all are the same today, decades later. One entry caught my eye, dealing with an ancient tree on a street I walk down nearly every day. I had no memory of seeing this ancient tree so I figured, as did the author, that the tree’s location had turned into a parking lot or apartment building in the ensuing years.
“You may see the tired remains of what was once a majestic old shiinoki (sweet acorn) tree which in other days was encircled by a Shinto rope to commemorate its venerable age, said to be more than 500 years…
Years ago there was a five-story pagoda here. It was destroyed during the wartime bombings; only the trees remain. The property is presently a parking lot, but once it belonged to a daimyo family.” (p. 114)
So I looked for the majestic old shiinoki and, in so doing, discovered that what was always there I had never before seen. Sure enough, it still fills the corner of a parking lot and probably goes completely unnoticed by the vast majority of people who pass. There is no sign (as there frequently is in Japan) commemorating its age or history. The Shinto rope (shimenawa) is back up and around its trunk however. A sake offering rests at its base.
If today’s picture looks a little familiar it is because a portion of it sometimes appears as the banner across the top of this blog.
To the foreign eye this photograph probably looks like a cool piece of Japan–lantern after lantern loaded with strange and unique Japanese characters. I wonder what it looks like to a Japanese person. What is written on these lanterns you ask? Business names. That’s right; this is just a wall of advertising. I find it to be more beautiful than American billboards, but maybe the Japanese look at it as an eyesore.
The location of these lanterns is near the entrance of a shopping street in Kyoto. Immediately behind the lanterns is a shrine. I’m guessing it is for the prosperity of the businesses that sponsor it. You can see some shimenawa and gohei if you look closely.
After five posts on the topic I will lay Fushimi Inari to rest and move on to something else tomorrow.
In the above photo you get a glimpse of the bamboo groves. I don’t think they have shown up in any of my pictures so far, but there is lots of bamboo at Fushimi Inari. Although not quite as impressive as the bamboo around Arashiyama and Sagano (which I will show you at some future time), there is something magical about being surrounded by bamboo. I once lived in an apartment in Japan surrounded by bamboo groves, but that’s a story for another day too.
The banners say 腰神不動明王. 不動 (fudo) is the unmovable Buddhist god and 明王 (meio) means great king. 不動明王 means that this deity is the head of the great kings. He is pretty fearsome looking and usually is well armed. Needless to say, he is a good god to have on your side for protection. Don’t piss him off though.
The 神 character on the banner means god (kami) so there isn’t much mystery there. 腰 is a bit of a puzzle however. 腰 means waist or hips. Given that some of the other characters on the banner mean protection of the lower body, I’m guessing that this is some sort of offering place for those with bad hips and legs?
As you can see, you can get help for just about anything at Fushimi Inari. It’s your one-stop offering center for just about any wishes you need to have fulfilled.
Along with tons of torii, there are tons of kitsune here. I’ve shown you only a few. The foxes usually have a red bib on. The red bibs are to ward off evil. Why bibs? You’ll see them on all kinds of statues in Japan, not just foxes. The bibs are related to children, particularly in keeping evil, disease, etc. from infants and small kids.
In the background you can also see some frog statues with the red bibs on. This place really covers all the bases.
The foxes usually have something in their mouths. As the symbol of the harvest (grains, rice, cereals, etc.), that something is frequently a key to the grain storehouse.
In the above picture my daughter is getting into the Shinto way of things. I asked her what she wished for, and she said, “to come back to Japan.” It looks like that is going to happen so this Shinto stuff seems to work!
You can see some more shimenawa in this shot.
My son immediately became a fan of tanuki (Japanese racoon dog) and now has one sitting on his shelf back home in Oregon. You can find a wide variety of lucky charms at Fushimi Inari. In this picture alone you can see tanuki, maneki neko (beckoning cat with raised paw), kaeru (frog), fukuro (owl), and daruma (達磨, dharma doll).
Fushimi Inari Taisha is about the only major shrine in the Kyoto area that is completely free. Directions are very simple as it is right next to the train station with the same name. Here is a map.
I have more noteworthy photos from Fushimi Inari than I originally thought. I don’t think this will be my last blog entry on the subject either. I hope you are enjoying the pictures. This shrine is my favorite so I got a little picture happy.
This first one shows a torii with a plaque. The plaque says 稲荷大社 (Inari Taisha). Notice the rope around the sacred object under and behind the gate. This rope is called shimenawa (注連縄). You’ll find it around Shinto gods (kami) like rocks and trees. I’m pretty sure you can spot some in Hayao Miyazaki’s famous anime movies like My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ). Sometimes you’ll see it on torii (like in the picture two down). When in the manner below it is to ward off evil spirits or indicate that you are entering sacred space.
Did I mention that you’ll see a lot of torii here? 
Not all of the torii are for walking through. Similar to ema, people purchase these mini torii and then leave them as offerings to bring good fortune at the Shrine. I noticed that people put the date on the left side and their names on the right side of these torii. This is the opposite of what you see on the large torii you walk through. I don’t know the meaning or significance of this. It may just be a matter of the first person getting things backwards and then everyone else playing “follow the leader.”
The contrast of the bright torii, dull gray rocks and stones, white cherry blossoms, and vivid greens made every view breathtaking. I believe there was a large pond just beyond this scene. The intermingling of nature with this Shinto shrine is spectacular. As you can see from these last two pictures, the manmade artifacts are set beautifully in the groves.
As I suspected in my prior entry, the missing character was probably a 納. 奉納 (read right to left in Japanese on the torii) means “offering.”
Here we see more shimenawa. We also see some gohei (御幣, also called shide), the white paper hanging on the shimenawa.
If you are like me, you like blogs you are interested in to be updated daily or at least several times a week. Nothing is worse than those blogs of promise that only have new content once every few months. I get tired of waiting and stop visiting. To that end, I will blog “old” information at times–especially times like now when I’m not on the road.
So let’s flash back to our trip to Japan from last year. On our last morning in Kyoto we went to the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha which is one of my favorite places in the world. Like many temples and shrines in Japan, it is particularly nice in the early morning hours or at dusk. If you have seen the movie Memoirs of a Geisha then you have seen this place. It is famous for its Torii (鳥居) gates, of which it has a ton–seemingly as many as the rest of Japan combined. However, I’ll save the Torii pictures for another entry.
For this entry, let’s focus on a couple of other curiosities about the place. Inari (稲荷) is the Japanese god of foxes (kitsune, きつね, or 狐) among other things. Hence, you can find lots of foxes at this shrine. The one pictured here is near the entrance. (As always, maximize your window and click on any of this blog’s photos for a much better view.)
One of the beautiful things at Shinto shrines is the prayer card walls. The prayer or wish plaques are called ema (絵馬). I’m not sure if “plaque” is the proper term. I suppose they could just as easily be called cards, boards, or tablets. They are made out of wood. Ema means “picture horse” but these days they can have any or no pictures on them. I’ve seen some with popular manga pictures printed on the wood. They are frequently placed in such a way that you can get this kind of wonderful photo of them all lined up with a shrine in the background. This one not only had the wooden plaques lined up nicely but also had colorful origami cranes below.
Fushimi Inari Taisha actually contains multiple shrines. This next one has a specific purpose. The readable kanji in the lower right are 入学奉. I’m guessing that there is a fourth character that didn’t make it into the picture and that kanji is probably 納. 入学奉納 means “an offering to get into school.” Students come here (and you can see one in the above picture) to wish for acceptance into the high school or university that they are trying to enter. It’s easier and takes less time than studying.
You can see the wish cards to the right and left of the center. A student would pull the white cord to ring the bell and summon the gods, clap their hands together twice, bow, make an offering of money, and then, perhaps, write their prayer on an ema to hang on the aforementioned wall.
Based on what I’ve read and conversations I’ve had, most Japanese don’t actually believe that the gods will get them into school. They do this more out of tradition and because it’s kind of fun. Although I’m no fan of superstition, I find these shrines and ema walls to be incredibly beautiful. The sights, sounds (of the bells, gongs, and hands doing quick claps), and smells (incense) really do make me feel something.
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