Sunday we went to Fushimi-inari jinjya (伏見稲荷神社) and the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum. Both were amazing!
When they first mentioned Fushimi-inari, I didn't realize that it was the jinjya with all the torii. It's a HUGE place. When you first get off the train, it just looks like a little town. It's pretty touristy because of the jinjya, but if you overlooked that stuff, it has the feel of a small town. It was more towards the southern hills, so it felt a little rural.
I really like going into the hills. I think the jinjya is meant to bring good harvests. There were lots of fox statues around with grain in their mouths. They made me think of the jackals usually seen in Greek mythology.
Once you get past the main shrine where you make your offering and pray, there are thousands of torii lining the way up the mountain. At one point you reach this nice little pond. It's a little murky, but it's a nice little respite. I'd really like to come back to this temple in the morning in the winter. If it snows, I bet this place will be amazing.
There were more places to stop along the hike. One of them had Ice Cream. It was super good! The mix was vanilla and some kind of rice flour. Sounds weird, but it was delicious.
Eventually we went back down and moved on to the sake museum. It was quite entertaining. Noah did a candid translation of the old woman's explanation of how they make sake. Apparently Fushimi is a traditional sake-brewing district and one of Kyoto's top 100 scenic areas. It was quite beautiful.
After our little tour of the sake museum they let us do some taste-tests. We got a 40 year old sake, a newer sake, and a plum dessert wine. They were all pretty good. The two regular sakes had a really mild flavor. I quite liked them. The plum wine was a less-sweet form of ume-shu. I'm sure it'd go wonderfully with a tart of some kind. Maybe pear... AH! FUTURE PLANS! So gonna do that when I get the chance.
We left with small bottles of sake. They were free omiyage! Most people drank their bottles at the river (that's all the rage here, drinking by the Kamagawa River-- it's called Kamanomi 「鴨飲み」). I saved mine for some other time.
We also went to a kaitenzushi place called Kappa Sushi (カッパ寿司). It hit the spot. We were all starving by that point. I ate 8 plates. I had some tempura sushi, takoyaki, salmon sushi with mayo and onion and avocado, and other scrumpcious morsels.
It was a long day, but super fun.
I also made a new friend! His name is Kohsuke Fukushima. He studied abroad at UC Santa Cruz a couple of years ago. His English is ridiculously good. He makes Jen and I endlessly jealous. We wish we could be as fluent in Japanese as he is in English. それじゃ、もっと勉強しなくちゃならない！
That's all I've got for now I think...
Oh! Since Halloween is coming I made some decorations for my room. I had to do something. And as per mother's request, here's some photos of my rice cooker. I've got it pretty much figured out. Now I can get those box meals that you can just dump in with some rice and they cook with the rice.
When the rice is done, you've got an awesome meal!
mmm... Speaking of food, it's dinner time for me.
Love until later,
Caitlin D.
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