Oh man. I totally forgot to mention in the
previous post that we also went to see the Golden Pavillion. It’s a very
important and beautiful thing, so how it slipped my mind is beyond me. But
because we were running on a tight schedule we could only bask in its beauty
for about 10-minutes. Anyway, here it is. Boom.
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| The Golden Pavillion |
Now moving swiftly on to shopping. Japan
has a reputation for being ridiculously expensive, which it really can be, but
like anywhere in the world – those who seek shall find discounts.
My counterparts decided to station
themselves in Takashimaya, which is a department store not far from Gion.
Unlike the Takashimaya in Singapore, this one is pretty unaffordable unless you
are buying like just eyeliner or something. So being unemployed and all that I
thought I’d have better chances going for a stroll down the road and I found
this wonderful street:
There were several smaller local boutiques
on that little shopping street that were selling items for less than 2000 Yen,
which was amazing. BUT that was not cheap enough for me. My persistence paid
off as 20-minutes later I came across this underground shop called “Don Don
Down”. It’s as Japanese as can be. The clothes were beautifully wacky, and well
instead of price tags, the clothes were attached to tags with a picture of a
piece of fruit or vegetable on them… I’m not kidding.
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| Cheap awesome shop in Kyoto |
Piecing together some very badly formed
Japanese sentences, I managed to procure that sheet (below) from one of the
sales assistants. I was looking at this really nice dress that had a watermelon
on the price tag and 300 Yen seemed way too good to be true so I figured it
must just mean that it’s 300 Yen off the original price right?! Anyway using
some more poor Japanese at the counter (“wa ikura desuka?”), the cashier typed
“310” into the calculator. Holy cow. 310 freaking Yen? I only had 5 minutes to
spare before I had to meet the others to make our dinner reservation so I paid
and swiftly made my way back to Takashimaya with my Prada-esque 300-Yen baby.
**
Another big plus about this shopping street
was that it also happened to be where our dinner reservations were. Recommended
by my aunt’s renowned foodie friend we had reservations to eat at the best
unagi place in town. For those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine, or those who
haven’t seen the ‘unagi’ episode with Ross from friends, it means eel. And yes,
this restaurant just sells eel. So delicious.
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| Kaneyo restaurant |
The English name for this place is Kaneyo
restaurant. The portions are very generous as well, so I had difficulty getting
through the medium rice bowl. Prices are not bad either, setting us back around
2000 Yen a person. You do have to make reservations in advance though because
it’s a relatively small place popular with both locals and tourists.
Woop woop I'm slowly catching up with my posts. Next it's on to Miyajima island and Hiroshima!
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