We started the day with an early visit to the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine on the Southern outskirts of Kyoto. This shrine is famous for the thousands of red gates that line the path up to the summit of Mount Inari. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to make the entire trek to the top, but it definitely gives me a valid excuse to come back to Japan (as if I didn’t already have enough).
Words are a poor way to explain the beauty of this place (and I’m also pretty exhausted tonight), so here are some pictures of the parts of the trail I traveled.
After our visit to Fushimi Inari, we packed up on the bus and traveled to the northern end of Kyoto. Nestled at the base of Mount Hiei sits the campus of Kyoto Seika University, known for its concentration on the creative arts. There, we were met by humanities professor Rebecca Jennison.
She introduced us to some of the students of the university with whom we briefly exchanged interests and questions. Our group was met by Natsuki Jiku, a foreign exchange student from China who is studying animation at the university. She’s a big anime fan and instantly clicked with our group. She’s a big fan of Love Live and is even part of the university’s school idol club!
After we talked to the university students, Ken Rodgers, head of the International Education Office, gave a brief presentation about the history of the university and Kyoto itself. The university was established in the 1960s, during a time of civil unrest among the nation’s students. While protests were being held in Tokyo, the students in Kyoto instead established a new teaching system that would eventually become the university as it is today. Their philosophy was to focus on international exchange and education, developing students’ interests and skills from the ground up, and keeping classes small to allow for more teacher/student interaction.
The university has many programs that deal with the creative media. Some of the most popular and well-known ones are the manga and animation programs. Many of the students graduate to become part of big-name anime studios, including local studio Kyoto Animation (KyoAni).
After his lecture, Prof. Rodgers gave us a quick tour of the campus. The buildings were all designed by alumni architecture students and teachers. Once again, it’s hard to explain the sight of these works of art, so I’ll use pictures to hopefully show you just how skillful and awe-inspiring this campus visit was to me. All pictures are collections of student and alumni-produced works (yes, even the buildings!).
Tomorrow, we’ll be visiting the Kyoto Manga Museum and then heading to Shiga Prefecture, where we’ll be staying in a traditional Japanese inn! I heard that there’s a good chance there will be snow! It’ll be my first time touching actual snow, so I’m definitely looking forward to it. I hope you will as well!
Otaku Ohana 
Amazing !!