Final day of the trip. Breakfast handled, hotel checked out, we’d arrived at Fushimi Inari by bus.
As declared on day one, the moment I’d boarded the bus I’d been dragged to the back row and crush-talk had resumed.
“Fushimi Inari is packed.”
“Yeah, fits being voted Kyoto’s number-one tourist spot.”
“Ryouya, Nee-chan, let’s go.”
Riona, looking the same on the surface but very eager, hustled us. We passed through the great torii into the shrine grounds with the rest of our group.
Per the inari name, there were fox statues scattered throughout the grounds. We purified our hands at the fountain and went to the main hall to pray.
To the right of the main hall is the kagura hall, where on lucky days you can catch a miko’s dance or kagura music as part of the rite, but our timing was off.
“What’d you guys pray for? I asked for academic success.”
“Secret.”
“Yeah, if you tell people, the wish might not come true.”
”…I just told you.”
That academic-success wish not coming true would be bad. My current grades vs. my target school were already a stretch.
“Don’t worry, Riona and I will handle your grades.”
“Yeah, me and Riona feel way more strongly about you than any god.”
The two of them looked confident. Convincing. We headed for the main attraction — the Senbon Torii (Thousand Torii Gates).
From here it was self-paced; classmates dispersed. I would be with Reona and Riona, of course.
“This view is the Fushimi Inari view.”
“Yeah, can’t come here and not see this.”
“Beautiful.”
The two of them started photographing the torii tunnel, careful not to block traffic.
My first time at Fushimi Inari — completely understood the urge to photograph. The view was something.
“All right, photos done — let’s keep moving.”
“Yeah, long way to go.”
“Looking forward to the view further up.”
The tunnel splits into two lanes; we took the right-side row. Crowded even on a weekday — progress was slow.
“Hey — how many torii are there actually? It’s called Senbon Torii — thousand — so I assume at least a thousand?”
“More than a thousand, probably. The torii run all the way to the summit.”
“Both incorrect. The Senbon Torii section has about 800 torii.”
“Wait — not a thousand?”
“In old Japanese, sen (thousand) was used to mean uncountably many, not a literal count.”
“Huh, learning something.”
“That’s interesting.”
I remembered our history teacher saying that ancient Japanese used sen as many. While walking we reached the Okusha Hōhaijo — known generally as Oku-no-In.
“Oh — over there, something interesting.”
“Omokaru-ishi?”
“You make a wish, then lift the round stone on the stone lantern. If the stone is lighter than you predicted, your wish will be granted.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s try.”
We all wanted to try. Stones are heavy by default, but with a name like light-or-heavy stone you’d expect a twist.
We took turns. To me, it was brutally heavy. Like it was fused to the lantern. Not a hint of light.