Toyokawa Inari

Red-and-white banners line the paths, the name says Inari, and the gates are guarded by foxes, so almost everyone assumes Toyokawa Inari is a Shinto shrine. It is a Soto Zen temple, formally Myogon-ji, founded in 1441 by the monk Tokai Gien, and the deity people come to pray to, Toyokawa Dakini-shinten, is a Buddhist guardian who rides a white fox. That is why there are foxes everywhere. The oldest building is the main gate, given by the warlord Imagawa Yoshimoto in 1536. Walk past the main hall and along the path of a thousand banners to the Okunoin, then keep going to Reiko-zuka, the reason most visitors come. It started as a place to leave a stone fox in thanks for a prayer answered, and now more than 1,000 of them, tiny to waist-high, stand in rows on the slope under the trees. It is quiet and a little eerie in the late afternoon. The grounds are free. The halls close at 15:30, earlier than you might expect, and parking is limited and costs 600 yen, so come by train. Okazaki Castle is on the same Meitetsu line from Nagoya.