---
title: The Thousand Gates
date: 2026-03-28
end_date: 2026-03-29
location_name: Kyoto
location_country: Japan
lat: 34.967
lng: 135.773
hero_image: hero.jpg
hero_alt: A vermillion torii gate at dawn, half-lit by morning sun
published: true
---
We left the ryokan before sunrise. Kyoto in March has a particular quality of light — not yet warm, but already golden at the edges. The streets were empty except for a few cyclists and one very confused vending machine that kept flashing its lights at nothing.

[chapter-break image="photo.jpg" title="Fushimi Inari" number="I" alt="Rows of vermillion torii gates stretching into darkness" /]

The path up through Fushimi Inari begins the moment you pass the main shrine. There is no dramatic threshold — just a gate, then another gate, then several thousand more. Each was donated by a business or family. You can read their names on the back of each post, small kanji pressed into the lacquered red.

[scrolly-section image="photo.jpg" alt="Tunnel of torii gates seen from below" caption="Senbon Torii — the Thousand Gates"]
The first gate smells of fresh lacquer. Someone has recently repainted it, and the colour is almost aggressive in its redness.

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By the tenth gate the smell is gone and the city has disappeared. Pine trees close in on both sides. The only sounds are other footsteps and the occasional crow.

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By the hundredth gate you stop counting. The path becomes the thing itself — not a means to a destination but a place to be.

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Near the summit there is a small shrine with fox statues wearing tiny red bibs. An old woman is arranging fresh flowers in front of them, moving with the unhurried certainty of someone who has done this ten thousand times.
[/scrolly-section]

[pull-quote image="photo.jpg" alt="View over Kyoto from the hilltop"]
The gates never seemed to end — and somewhere around gate five hundred, I stopped wanting them to.
[/pull-quote]

By the time we descended, the city had woken up. Taxis, schoolchildren, a delivery truck arguing with a narrow alley. We found a coffee shop down a side street that did not appear to expect visitors and sat there for an hour watching nothing in particular happen.

[snap-gallery images="hero.jpg,photo.jpg" captions="Morning light on the main shrine,Fox statues at the upper shrine" alts="Sunlit shrine building,Stone fox statues with red bibs" /]

That evening we had ramen in a place with eight seats and a chef who appeared to be operating entirely by memory. There was no menu. You sat down and food appeared. It was the best meal of the trip.
