it's been a while since i've really been able to set aside time to try to post - sorry about that! i've been back in kyoto for several days now, but of course, as soon as i got a decent nights' sleep in, i was back out trying not to waste any valuable time, walking around for 7-9 hours every day to see as much as possible in heat that is still pretty bad even if it's not quite as nasty as i thought it would be. it's been in the upper 90's every day lately, i think. i expected it to be over 100- i guess the summer i was here 2 years ago was a record breaker. go figure. i've seen too much in the past few days to be able to remember all at once, especially right now - my head is totally cooked. but yesterday i spent the entire day at fushimi inari taisha, which was probably about a half an hour walk south from my guest house. but it was hot as hell, so i took the subway a few stops. everyone's seen a photo from this shrine at some point or another - it has what looks like, and what i thought was just a long, long pathway under bright red torii (gates) packed tightly together that go uphill someplace. i thought there was one path that led to the main shrine. i didn't realize how much more there is than that. the main buildings are actually down almost at street level, a few blocks from the train station with plenty of omiyage shops and restaurants between.

the famous torii are actually scattered along a surprisingly large trail system in the forest on the mountain/hills behind, and as many of them as there are (hundreds? thousands?) there have got to be twice as many actual inari shrines, from huge to tiny, in clusters all over the place in the woods along the paths. most of them are in tightly packed clusters, with very narrow almost accidental paths that somehow make all of the shrines accessible, technically. a lot of these clusters of small shrines sort of center around one larger one that faces a small shop that sells some combination of shrine supplies, omiyage, and food/drinks. some are more isolated and would have been completely silent if not for the almost deafening cicadas and other bugs and birds in the woods. there was one in particular that i spent a long time taking pictures and video in, and finally heard someone sweeping after what must have been at least 20 minutes (fushimi inari taisha is a very popular tourist spot, so it was weird to be able to spend so much time in a group of shrines off the path without seeing or hearing any other tourists walking around). oh crap, i've exceeded my quota. will have to delete some old photos so i can fill up this post. be back soon...