With the warmer weather coming to an end and the fall colors coming out to greet us, there was no better time to take a trip North to the historical city of Kyoto to do a little sightseeing.
This weekend, my friends and I went an hour away from school to the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto to see their main attraction, their Torii gates. Torii gates are, like the name suggests, gates, but are not meant to close something off; rather they exist to define the boundary between the ordinary world.
The Torii gates are a staple of Japanese imagery, and Fushimi Inari runs with it, boasting thousands of Torii gates that hang over the walkways up and around the mountain the shrine stands on. As expected, this place was crawling with people wanting to see for themselves, but my friends and I elected to arrive closer to sunset to enjoy not only the gates but the tree’s changing colors in the light of dusk which, combined with the cold, kept the shrine slightly less packed.
We thoroughly enjoyed the walk through the hundreds of bright red Torii gates decorated with various Kanji and often flanked by statues of Kitsune, the fox messengers of the Kami Inari, the God of rice in Shinto belief.
We also set our sights on the local aquarium located on the coast. While it was admittedly smaller than I was expecting, it did not take away from the various exhibits holding various fish from all across the Atlantic Ocean, octopi and rays to name a few.
This aquarium had a selection of warm-blooded animals too, namely seals and dolphins and quite a few species of penguin. While those were all awesome in their own right, none of them held a candle to one of the main attractions; a massive tank spanning over 100 feet long and a height of about two and a half stories. This tank was large enough to comfortably hold countless big fish, sharks, manta rays and two enormous whale sharks.
After enjoying those sights, the aquarium finished off with a room full of art-piece-like tanks holding a multitude of different jellyfish.
After the aquarium we found a place for dinner serving burgers made of Wagyu beef with a sign stating “We apologize if you are unable to eat another burger again after trying ours,” so we had to try it. I will say, it was one of the best burgers I have had, and the experience was made better by the owner who made conversation with us and even gave us complimentary stickers from the store.
Kyoto was a very fun experience, and I hope to go back again to see more of the historical landmarks before the semester is up.
Collin Haberbosch can be contacted at
