Good old Kyoto - Japan-Sunday

I was in Kyoto many times, the first time in the summer of 2015, it was a rainy day, I only went to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the Nintendo Headquarter and a book off, where I bought Pokémon red.
At Fushimi Inari they had blocked the way up to the top because of a typhoon.

But the following pictures are about my trip to Kyoto in Fall with my buddies

FUN FACT regarding Fushimi Inari Taisha and Nintendo: The "white fox" shrine is some sort of the Origin of Star Fox, the Fushimi Inari and its thousands of Tori inspired Shigeru Miyamoto to create the "torii" in Star Fox

Now enjoy pictures of our trip:

At the Kyoto JR station a few students with their teachers practiced their english skills, it was funny, the boy on the right was the best , he was quite enthusiastic and asked a few questions and reacted to our answers while the others only read their questions on the papers.

We started with the Kiyomizudera Temple in the East of Kyoto, we had planned a lot for that day, but our day began very late so we only were able to visit the Kiyomizudera temple and the Fushimi Inari Taisha.

 

And here's the entrance / Main gate of the Fushimi InariTaisha

This time I was at the top and prayed, but I didn't visit the bamboo forest this time, so there's something that you can look forward to in my next Kyoto entry.

Aaaaand that's it again.

What's a Shuincho - Japan-Sunday

Whenever you visit a shrine or temple you definitely need to buy your first Shuincho.
A shuincho is a book where you collect the unique stamps and kaligraphy writings of a buddhist temple or shinto shrine. It's a piece of culture and art, especially when one of the old masters is showing his kaligraphy skills .

Visiting the different shrines ands temples is a good deed because a stamp (normally, Meiji Jingu not) costs 300Yen which is some sort of donation.

Collecting those stamps is a kind of personal spiritual pilgrimage. There is nospecific shrine that you need to visit nor is there any order. You only have to keep in mind that not every temple offers a stamp and otherwise some of them offer more than one.

 

 

That was just a part of my stamps that I collected since 01.01.2016 when I bought my first "stamp book" at Zōjō-ji in Tokyo. the following are some of my favorites:

Left: Itsukushima Jinja on Miyajima Island in Hiroshima
Right: Gokoku Jinja next to the Hiroshima Castle

Beside the "normal" shuincho there's also a special one for doing the pilgrimage on Shikoku to 88 specific temples, I tried it in August 2015 but failed miserably...

Time to get your Shuincho, when you are in Japan.