We woke up in our very nice hotel in Kyoto, headed downstairs for an elaborate breakfast & met with our tour guide, Noriko. We started our day visiting the famed Torii gates, the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. Each gate was donated by a business and the price of the gates range from $7 (the price we paid for a little one to write some wishes for good fortune) to $13,000 for the huge ones. This shrine honors the patron dieties of agriculture and business, so the 1st-3rd of January, millions show up here in hopes to have good fortune for their business for the upcoming year.
Ours is on this rack.
We also saw the shrine to give students good fortune when taking exams. It is said that if they fold 1000 paper cranes, they will pass their exams. I thought if they studied vs. folding a thousand paper cranes it would probably help them pass their exams easier, but if it works...
Got to go- we're off to Hiroshima, will blog more about this day later.
Looks so colorful...We wish we were with u. Japan is a favorite destination
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