At the start of the day, I decided to see two more of Kyoto's highlights. First was the Fushimi Inari Shrine, a shrine to Inari, the god of rice and agriculture. This shrine is famous for the long path of torii (the red Shinto purification gates) that lead from the main shrine to the peak of the mountain. There are literally HUNDREDS of them along the path. The idea is that when you walk through a torii, you become ritually cleansed, so that when you reached the top of the mountain, you were about as cleansed as you could be. The torii were funny in that they varied DRASTICALLY in age. Some were two termites shy of falling apart, others looked like they'd just been painted yesterday. Oddly enough, they were all different sizes, too. Oh, and a sidenote: stay on the main torii path. I saw a smaller path branch off and decided to follow it a bit and came across a hive of bees. I squwaked, jumped back down to the main path, and tried to pretend nothing happened as a bunch of chinese tourists looked funny at me.
The reference to 'foxes' in the title comes from the fact that in Shintoism, foxes are regarded as semi-mystical messengers from the gods, and are closely tied to Inari. As a result, fox statues are scattered all over the mountain. They weren't exactly hidden, as most of them were around the shrines and altars along the path, and ALL of them had bright red scarves tied around them.
Anyway, I wandered around some backroads and branch paths from the main shrine on the way to the torii path. Soon after I came up with an alternative title for this post: "Let's not tell Chris how big this mountain is." Everyone recommends going to see this shrine, no one tells you it's a two-hour climb to the top. I got halfway up before I came across a sign telling me how big it was. I realized it was another hour up and hour down, and decided I felt plenty pure as it was, thank you very much, and headed back down. I swung through the little market and bought a couple little souvenirs on the way back to the station, and grabbed some just truly terrible takoyaki from a street vendor. What's more, Japan's apparent fear of public trashcans meant that I had to carry the stuff all the way back to the station before I could find a trashcan to get rid of it.
Anyway, back in Kyoto, I grabbed some ramen at the station (much tastier), then hopped on another train bound for Saga Arashayama, an area famous for two things: a buddhist temple sporting a supposedly gorgeous bamboo forest, and a park full of wild monkeys you could feed. Guess which one I went for? I started walking from the temple following signs for the monkey park, crossed a river, saw another sign, looked up and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THE MONKEYS WERE ON TOP OF ANOTHER MOUNTAIN?!? -__-
A little (okay, not so little) hill wasn't going to keep me from my monkeys, though, so I grabbed a 'monkey-proof' bag from the ticket office to put my stuff in (it was just a sky blue cloth grocery tote) and started hoofing it up. It wasn't a long hike (took me maybe thirty minutes) but it was a steep one. I was thoroughly out of breath by the time I got to the top. The monkeys were as funny as expected, and there was a shed we could stand in and feed them from. We'd pass apples and peanuts through the fence. The young monkeys would argue and jostle for positions nearest the people with food, while older monkeys just kinda stared, knowing they'd get fed. The visit ended on an amusing note. Some kid took a peanut out of the shed, and a monkey noticed, ran up, and scared the kid. One of the rangers/monkey-wranglers scared the monkey nearly off a cliff and made threatening monkey noises and hand motions at it. I cracked up, then headed home to change (the trip home was exceptionally ordinary).
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| This chill fella was just waiting for his peanut. |
Now I'll say this: the chef and cooks were obviously top of the line, the food was excellent quality, and the waiters and hostess were very welcoming of this stranger in a strange land (I was both the only non-Japanese customer and the only customer under 40). That said, this was the most difficult meal I've ever had. I was COMPLETELY out of my depth. About half of the courses were right at the edge of my comfort zone, and half of those were on the wrong side of it. A lot of the ingredients were things you'd just never see in an American restaurant (even the most cool or edgy). I didn't take photos (I didn't want to draw any more attention to myself), but the courses I remember are below (I forgot quite a few):
- A plate of Aji (mackerel) sashimi, served with grapefruit (This was very tasty)
- A small plate of a white paste they didn't know the English name of (I think it was whipped taro root in a soy-gravy; it was tasty as well!)
- Scallop sashimi in miso-sesame sauce (Om nom nom, this is going great so far!)
- Stewed soft roe. Basically it was stewed fish sperm sacs. It didn't taste bad, but the 'ick' factor was really hard to suppress. (Okay...I might be in trouble).
- Salmon (or some other fatty fish) in a jelly of some sort (believe it or not, also tasty, if difficult to eat; the spoon they gave me wasn't very adept at scooping)
- A big bowl of miso-ish soup. This was the first really difficult one, oddly enough. It was a HUGE bowl of soup, which wasn't bad, but it was full of this weird vegetable that looked like gills and had the consistency of a slimy raw potato. It took me 5 minutes of constant eating to finish off those nasty things. Please imagine sitting and eating an entire (warm) raw potato, while not having anyone or anything to distract you, and you'll get where I'm coming from.
- A bowl of dried 'tiny fish.' I think it was baby eels. It also didn't taste bad (surprisingly bland, actually), but they were quite chewy, and at this point, I was full and having trouble keeping the 'ick' factor at bay.
- Flounder and fatty tuna sashimi. A welcome reprieve.
- An assortment of Japanese pickles and different preparations of fish roe. Oddly enough the roe was not bad, though the ick factor/fullness problem reached its limit. The pickles weren't helping, which I'll comment more on later.
- Whole sardines. I like sardines and I like whole fish, so this was pretty good also. Still full, so hard to keep going.
- Stewed veggies. Take a big bowl of spinach and mushrooms and boil them. Serve it up in a bowl with the boiling water. I made it through about a third of mine.
- Jellied eels, seaweed, green peppers, and glass noodles. This one broke me. The eels were whole, eyes and all and staring at me. They were also stiff with rigor mortis still. The peppers tasted like green bell peppers, which I hate. I was full to the point of not being able to force things down anymore. Thankfully there were some pine nuts at the bottom, so I looked like I was picking at it before giving up.
- Rice. Easy, right? Nope. Half of it was topped with chopped chiso leaf (a kinda minty, kinda grassy leaf they use here), and that was the half I ate. The other half was covered in Japanese pickles. I left that part alone. Another post to follow about that.
Anyway, the chef noticed I was leaving half my stuff on each plate and laughed and made the 'feeling full' gesture. Grateful for the out, I smiled and said yes. I drank the tea and orange juice that ended the meal, and the hostess in her kimono and the chef showed me out. The hostess walked me to the street making small talk in the little english she knew and the littler japanese that I did.
When I got home I tore into some of my kit kat store to get a familiar taste in my mouth.
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