Fox, flame, rice

Here is one of the many stone foxes that flank the myriad shrines at Fushimi Inari, Kyoto. Many are green with lichen and are weathered with age. Here on New Year`s Day, the corridors of red torii gates were congested with hundreds of visitors to the shrine. Sir S and I enjoyed walking among the crooked laneways of foxes and stone, breathing in the heavily incensed air and listening to the chants of old couples praying before candle-lit shrines and offering rice to Inari-san. For a late lunch we rested in a delightful wooden teahouse upon raised tatami platforms and blue-white cushions. We sat by a thickly-paned window and looked out upon a steep hillside of straggling maples, gold and brown. I slurped on kitsune udon, supposedly a favourite food of the fox, and we warmed our bellies with amazake - almost like drinking hot rice pudding! Fushimi Inari is definitley one of my favourite places in Japan and I could while away many days wandering here.