Having established online for certain that the woman at the fourth queue misinformed me about my pass not being valid to Hiroshima, I am relieved that she was so adamantly wrong. I stayed in Osaka instead, and eventually my peregrinations took me to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, and from there up the slopes of Mount Inari.
The blog my iPad lost was all about Inari. People have tried to make Inari look like people because there will always be narcissists, but Inari is a fox spirit and has loads of friendly kitsune helping out. Inari deals with harvest – (and the performing arts). He’s a big fan of rice cakes and tofu. She had the shrine next to my first digs, and on the first day I didn’t have any coins with me so I offered him a Victorian collar stud, a shiny ball and a plastic rabbit. I think she liked the rabbit and the ball, but the collar stud…?
OK there was a shrine keeper there. Maybe they go through all the offerings and maybe they worked out that the stud was from the gaijin staying next door. Maybe they then spoke to my hostess, let themselves into my bedroom, and left the collar stud on my pillow. Right? That’s the rational explanation. Because the only other option is that Inari gave it back. It was on my pillow when I got home. It took it in my stride at the time but the more I thought about it the weirder it felt.
Now it’s in my shirt top buttonhole. It wasn’t a rebuke, the thing coming back. The stud is white, the colour you see Inari and the kitsune painted. White like rice. Maybe Inari charged up my collar stud and then sent a quick kitsune to drop it back on my pillow as a surprise. By the time it came back they’d had a few coins off me too, as well as the shiny ball and the rabbit, so they couldn’t think I was being stingy. And they’d had some company. That shrine out in the styx – it’s strong but not well attended.
Maybe the shrine keeper dropped it back in contempt. Maybe it was another collar stud that somehow came out of my bag where they are all still hooked to card. However it got onto my pillow, I’m taking it as a positive thing to have it. I do have other studs so human error is possible. Still, I’ll restrict my box offerings to cash, and leave my random things elsewhere, and the remaining studs are all gonna get left overnight at various shrines to see if I can repeat the experiment, and charge them up with various friends.
Mt Inari has the Fushima Inari Shrine at its base. It was a bit human conveyor belt down there and as I was going nose to tail with all of Instagram I noticed a little path off to the side that nobody was taking, so I took it.
The little path winds up the mountain, past legions of ancient Inari. I think it might be how they marked graves, but most of them seem to be clean shrines, radiating power. I took the path close to dusk, just as the rain was starting. I barely saw another soul on the way up. Just an ancient couple tending the most incredible complex of old shrines – absolutely rammed with frogs as well. Their sound was so loud you could believe it was electronically wired for sound. (it wasn’t). I bought all their incense at Y50 a batch. That’s about 25p each. And it’s gorgeous stuff. She gave me a free box of matches. Now I have fire.
By the time I got to the top I was hot but soaked. A steady rainfall all the way, but I was so happy to be there that I didn’t mind. I left a bit of Jersey granite with one of the old ones.
I don’t resent the woman at JR for thinking I had a different pass from the one I have. I’m just sad I lost those morning hours to a queue. It was a lesson though. Today I just got on the train. The pass lets me through the barrier. The guard knows the pass. So long as I know I’m on the right train, the fact I haven’t got a reserved seat is irrelevant.
I’m off to Nachi-Taisha, via Kii-Tanabe. Inari Mountain was a warm up. I’ve got to think about left luggage now, and stripping back what I’m carrying, and getting up even earlier… I think I’ll have to leave my case in kii-tanabe and pick it up just before I fly.
AlBarclay 