Fushimi Inari Shrine and the Kyoto Imperial Palace (Sort of...)

Today Becky and I got on the Keihan line and rode it to Kyoto to see the Fushimi Inari shrine, which is famous for it's ten thousand tori gates.

We ended up sitiing in the first car, so we could watch them control the train. It was pretty cool.

Made it! The station was really obvious. It has Inari's white foxes and red everywhere like a shrine.

Small neighborhood shrine.

To walk the whole thing it would have taken two and a half hours. We were lazy and it was hot... so we only did some of it...

There were a ton of small shops and tourist traps all the way to the shrine.

Talking to mom on the phone. lol.

Wishes were everywhere, tied to trees and bushes...

We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant.

Then we set off for the Kyoto Imperial palace. Becky was dying to see it.

So we got off the train and walked several blocks to it.

We knew we were close when we found a wall of trees in the middle of the city. It's kind of like central park in NYC.

It was huge!

There were a bunch of poor women out in the hot sun pulling weeds, trying to keep the gravel clear.

So apparently, even though the emperor hasn't lived in this palace for nearly a hundred years, no one is allowed to see it, except on special occasions or by approved letter. So we saw the outer wall of the palace.

The park that surounds the palace is covered with a lot of really old trees that are numbered and half of them propped up.

These ravens are all over Japan and they are huge! Nothing like a crow! It's the size of my cat!

Becky like big tree...

There were actually a good number of locals just out enjoying the park despite the heat.

Sprite! Found Sprite! This vending machine by the tennis courts in the park is the only place in Japan I've seen it!

So... get this: this is a gas station. Check out where the gas nozzles are... Weird...

After that we went back to Hirakata-shi and did purikuri.

The quality's bad because I took a picture of the print out with my camera.

For dinner I started making squash casserole, then realized I didn't have cheese, cream of chicken soup, or sour cream... so I followed the recipe up to the adding of those ingredients, but instead just put the bacon grease onions with the boiled squash & zucchini, then threw in some noodles and some mushrooms. It was pretty good.