Last day in Kyoto today but we really wanted to get to Fushimi Inari Taisha before we left. So we checked out early, left our bags at the hotel and set off.

Fushimi Inari Taisha (shrine) is another one of those places that is always deserted in promotional photos, but we knew it would get busy. We had thought that an early start might spare us some of thep crowds, but we’d forgotten it was Saturday. It was so crowded. Very hard to get a photo without at least one stranger in it!

Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousand shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. It is famous for its thousands of red/orange torii gates, which run along a network of paths behind the main buildings. The paths lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds.

We climbed past most of the crowds (a lot of people stop at the first point where trails meet – there are some stalls there – so long as they have their photos) but we stopped about 15 minutes from the top as we were getting a little anxious about all we had left to do (get back down, go back to hotel and get luggage, buy shinkansen tickets, get to Kyoto Pokemon Centre, take 3 hour shinkansen to Tokyo, get from Tokyo station to our hotel, and check in). And, of course, Maeve was moaning about “even more stairs!” and Corwin’s cold was giving him some grief so it seemed like a good point to call it.

If you climb high enough, you walk down a different path to the one you climbed up, which is nice:

So, we left Fushimi Inari and decided to split up. Morgan and Corwin went and fetched the luggage, while Maeve and I went and joined the very long, Saturday line for shinkansen tickets (we were not going to go unreserved and risk standing up for 3 hours).

The boys rejoined us at Kyoto Station and then I took Corwin to hit the last of his 5 Pokemon Centres. He had wanted to go to one in each of the three main cities we visited, so he did pretty well.

After buying a few things for pokemon fans at home, we headed back to Kyoto Station and grabbed some late lunch before boarding our last shinkansen. Here are some more of my spectacular shinkansen-on-the-move photos:

Arrived back in Tokyo in the evening and took a subway train and then the Disney train to our hotel. It’s one of the Disney affiliate hotels, so it’s on that Disney train loop line. Nice and convenient.

Took ages to check in, but luckily enough time was left for these crazies to get in the pool:

This was my view, from one of the poolside loungers:

Relaxing…

And, finally, a shot of the view from our balcony at night. So pretty.

The darkness in the background is Tokyo Bay.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Easter Sunday, to be precise. We will not be going to either of the Disney parks on a weekend, so we’re going to check out teamlab borderless at the Mori Digital Art Museum. Tune in tomorrow to find out what that is.