Japan

My guidebook suggested I do a nighttime walk through Gion and Pontocho, I ran into a couple of geishas along the way who were entertaining large groups of people for dinner. I tried to find somewhere for dinner but didn't realise that anywhere with a red curtain on display meant it was open for business.
Alot of the bars and restaurants through Kyoto are more a speakeasy style where you really have to know what and where you are looking to actually find and get in to them. Some might even have passwords from what I could gather.
Found a small place which specialised in fowl and horse. Ordered myself a shabu shabu horse dish which tasted quite similar to beef, had a little horse sashimi as well which was quite nice but a little bland.
There were some other foreigners having dinner there as well who talked with me for most of the dinner which was nice.
The gion area is quite upmarket and expensive dishes but thought I would give it a go. Otherwise I passed a lot of lady bars and burlesque places on some of the gaudy streets but I don't believe any of them welcomed foreigners, they often gave me a weird look as I walked by. I realised I had walked 16k by the end of the night so took the subway part of the way home.Read more