{"id":6913,"date":"2009-12-13T06:47:05","date_gmt":"2009-12-12T22:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/12\/13\/kamitori-and-the-city\/"},"modified":"2010-12-29T21:46:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T13:46:58","slug":"kamitori-and-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/12\/13\/kamitori-and-the-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamitori and the City"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4531-kamitoricho-shopping-arcade\" There are apparently two large shopping districts in Kumamoto City. The closer one to my hotel was Kamitori (\u4e0a\u901a), but from my initial fact-finding on Google Maps seemed too far to walk, which was a bummer as that meant that I had one less place to explore in my free time.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the shopping arcade wasn\u2019t nearly as far as I\u2019d initially thought. I sort of stumbled into the area on my first day on foot while waiting for the hotel to check me in. The district is really dominated by several long straight running streets with hundreds of shops, eateries, restaurants, cafes, specialist shops on either side of the road, with dozens of other off shooting side streets too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to see the difference between shop variety here and in Singapore. What do you see in a typical Singapore mall? Well, fastfood restaurants, Watsons, Popular, Bata and a large food court spanning the entire floor. The Kamitori district has restaurants and cafes, but the vast majority of them offer Japanese cuisine. I haven\u2019t found places offering other cuisine yet apart from the odd Italian-esque restaurant here and there offering Japanese versions of pizzas.<\/p>\n

One street\u2019s entirely covered by a veranda that offers shelter from the elements. Really nifty looking, and while the street is passable by vehicular traffic, the street feels very indoor-ish and cosy. That\u2019s the picture here and admittedly not very well-taken. I\u2019ll take a nicer one if I pass by the place again later.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of familiar sights too: what looks like a franchise operation of 7-11, McDonalds, KFC \u2013 even Yoshinoya that offers several similar looking beef bowls.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4546-kamitoricho-shopping-arcade\"<\/p>\n

There\u2019re a couple of large shopping malls along the main road too \u2013 haven\u2019t checked out these places yet (I\u2019m not a shopping person). Below picture. But on Saturday evening, the district was bustling with activity at 6 pm with heavy traffic flow, and lots of people.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4585-streets-night\"<\/p>\n

\"blog-kamitori\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not difficult to see where Kamitori is \u2013 on Google maps, it\u2019s the spot with the most number of interest spots LOL.<\/p>\n

A couple of other differences: I saw a lot of young people in uniforms either all looking tired and returning from school, or they were all dressed up to party and have fun. Interestingly, I saw very few\u2026<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Non-Japanese<\/li>\n
  2. Families with children<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I can understand the first, since Kumamoto City itself is a little out of the way and the place isn\u2019t featured prominently in tourist brochures. But the second is intriguing. Everywhere in Singapore you\u2019ll find toddlers, babies in prams, young under 10 children running about \u2013 but not in this city. I wonder why,<\/p>\n

    One last picture: a florist that\u2019s on one of the sidestreets on the district\u2019s outskirts. The mix of colors, lighting and Christmas decorations made for a beautiful picture:<\/p>\n

    \"blog-2009-kumamoto-DSC_4584-streets-night\"<\/p>\n

    Well that\u2019s it for the entry. I\u2019m going to head for breakfast after living off McDonalds (not joking) and fastfood yesterday (sorry Ann LOL). It\u2019s going to be a busy Sunday: I have a bit of free time in the morning, then the afternoon I\u2019ll be meeting with the college\u2019s staff to take a look at their campus, labs and the lecture rooms I\u2019ll be using from Monday onwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are apparently two large shopping districts in Kumamoto City. The closer one to my hotel was Kamitori (\u4e0a\u901a), but from my initial fact-finding on Google Maps seemed too far to walk, which was a bummer as that meant that<\/p>\n

    Read More Kamitori and the City<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[463,237],"class_list":["post-6913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling","tag-japan-2010","tag-kumamoto-2009","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}