There's Halloween edition of Fuchiko on a Cup
And are these special ones for Fushimi Inari with the foxes on?
We're at Fushimi Inari Shrine
Which is one of the places I was most looking forward to coming to
It's the one with the hundreds and hundreds of red gates going up the mountain
We've just got here
We walked through this touristy street here
With loads of food stalls
And souvenir shops
And here's the entrance
Look at the foxes guarding the entrance
In Japanese mythology
Foxes are messengers
And they're a bit tricky and mischievous
Apparently they can possess you
And the way they enter is underneath your fingernails
So watch out!
Look at the cool fox tails on the writing
This place is thought to be haunted
And the guidebook says don't come here on your own at night
Because it's too scary!
There's some more fox messengers
Apparently foxes like to eat tofu
1000 gates - this is the start!
Up there
There's the actual start
I'm not sure why there's 1000 gates
But they're all sponsored by people or companies
And that's what the writing is on them
So maybe we could get a Cakes with Faces gate?
Please go right way
Keep it organised!
It's really busy in this section
We keep having traffic jams when people want to take photos!
Look at the outside, they look so weird!
These ones are a lot smaller than the ones at the start
Sorry Phil!
There's the big ones at the start
Here's their ema boards for writing your wishes
And they're fox shaped!
You get the eyebrows ready drawn
And you can draw your own face
It looks really nice with the red of the gates
And all the forest around
And there's a stream as well
Every so often there's been little breaks in the gates
And there was an area back there where you could turn back and go back to the main shrine
It's a lot quieter in this section
Are we going to go all the way to the top Phil?
Don't know how far the top is!
We'll try!
I don't think it's too far
We're coming up to a steep bit!
Mini gates!
And foxes
So pretty
You probably can't see
But there's a spider web with a really big spider just there
There's a path that way
I think this is the way to go
This might be how much it costs to sponsor a gate
I don't think it is
Put it on Google Translate and work out what this actually is!
It dripped on my head!
The further up we go
The fewer people there are
There's someone coming along now
We had the place to ourselves just now
So if you want to take pictures
It's better to go further up
*meow*
Sorry!
I feel bad now!
Three more cats through there
It's been a lot of stairs
And it's pretty humid
We were about to go back down
But I'm glad we didn't
Because look at this view!
We're on the way back down
And we're at a turning point
That's the way we came up
And we're going this way
We've come back down the back way
There's a lot less gates & there's been some shrines on the way
I'm not sure if you can tell on the video
But it's quite dark in places even now
So I can see how it might be a bit creepy at night time
I don't know what this is
But there's a frog and a gong
And we're back to the start
Can you hear the cicadas?
Whenever I watch videos from Japan
They're always so loud
And I think it can't be real
Because you never hear them in the UK
Or hardly ever
But you can hear them now
We've been round the whole thing now
The entrance is just over there
We didn't quite make it to the top
But we almost got there
So loud! (birds)
It was great to see all the gates
And I really enjoyed it
I loved how they didn't just put in a few gates
They put in hundreds of them!
And it does take quite a long time to walk around
It gets pretty steep towards the top actually as well
And then we got a really good view of Kyoto
From near the top
There were a few things that we didn't see
There's a paddy field over there as well
And a few little shrine-y bits along the way
So there's lots to do
And I liked all the fox statues
They were really cool
It's just stopped raining
The rain didn't spoil it at all
In a way I'm glad we had the umbrellas
Because there were so many big spiders
But don't let the spiders put you off coming!
They're on their webs, out of the way
And they didn't come down on us at all
I forgot to mention
it's free to get in
You can walk round the whole thing, you don't have to pay to go in any of it
To get here, come to Fushimi Inari Station
And probably everybody else will be coming to the same place
So just follow where everyone's going
It's really crowded at the start
But as you go up it gets a lot quieter
So wait till you go up a bit to take your pictures
And don't worry if it's really crammed full of people at the start
It's a lot better as you go further up
We've got an orange - orange juice
They take an orange
Then take the top out
Put a machine on it
To swirl up the insides
And here it is, with a straw
I've got a blockage from all the orange bits!
Tastes really fresh
It's really good
We thought we saw some authentic Japanese shrine flags
They're actually from TripAdvisor!
This shrine is the #1 site popular with foreign tourists
For the third years in a row
As we were coming out it started to get dark
And it looked really pretty
So we've just hung around for a bit
And it looks so nice!
With the lights starting to come on
And as it's starting to get dark
This is always my favourite time of day when we're away
Because it's just starting to get dark
All the lights are coming on
And everything looks really magical
They've got ema boards that look like the gates - it looks really cute!
We're going to go back up
And see if it really is scary at night!
Can you see me?
Here's the start at night
Gate number one
Spooky!
Well we didn't see any ghosts
But as you can see
It's dark now
And there's hardly anybody here
So I'm really glad we came back when it was dark
Because it's a completely different atmosphere
To during the day
So if you come here just as it's getting dark
It's a really good time