Blog of Sean: Kyoto the Trip! Part 10

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Kyoto the Trip! Part 10 - Kamogawa and Pontocho

The Kamogawa is a nice river that runs north-south through central Kyoto. Along the banks the city has created an excellent cycling/pedestrian path that provides a great, tree-lined way of traversing the city by bicycle.

On the west bank of the river as you near central Kyoto you notice a long line of multi-story, older looking buildings facing the river:

This is the Pontocho area, an alley running next to the river which houses many of the most exclusive entertainment establishments in town. At night they light up and you can see the goings on within from a bridge crossing the river:

These places are way more than our budget would allow for, so we didn't venture in. If you venture a further block away from the river though you'll find one of the better cherry blossom viewing places in Kyoto along a small canal that runs parallel to Pontocho:

Some of the shops are interesting, like this one with a giant lantern (called "red mustache", note the illustration on the top):

There are some quirky shops and restaurants along this street which are much less upscale than the ones on neighboring Pontocho.

For reasons which are not entirely clear to me, a lot of Kyoto's pornography stores also line this street, a fact that we found amusing as the tourist brochures carefully crop them out of the photos.

Kyoto's Kabuki theatre is also nearby, albeit on the opposite bank of the Kamo river:

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About Blog of Sean

This is a blog. My name is Sean. It is my blog. Hence the name.

Its a blog mostly about Fukuoka, Kyushu and Japan. Because that is where I live. All three of them. They are very blog-worthy places. Hence my choice of subject matter.

I hope you enjoy the blog. Its got a lot of stuff in it, as you can see from the gargantuan list of labels just below. Look down, you'll find it. On the right of the screen. Yeah...thats it. Lots of stuff, eh? Yup.

Feel free to browse at your leisure.

NOTE: It has been a while since I updated this blog. Mostly because I left Fukuoka in 2012 and decided to wrap it up, blogs are so much more fun to write when you live in a place like Fukuoka (and have the time).