In the evening, we moved to the neighboring entertainment district of Pontocho, alongside the river. It's really just one long street running parallel to the river, but houses most of the popular restaurants, bars, karaoke joints etc. It's also got some geisha action going, but in general the area is not as upscale as Gion. It's a very lively place to walk around at night, as Japanese, usually so restrained, drink like maniacs and can be really rowdy at night. It's all a bit of forced fun, since many of them are on business functions with clients, which the Japanese have to do almost every night, trading shots of sake and generally getting plastered. There are lots of nice restaurants in the houses overlooking the river, where we had dinner that night. It's not that easy because they tend to discourage foreign guests because we're so alien, but you'll eventually find one that can cope. The usual way of coping is to just open a menu and point at some characters and see what shows up, although most smaller restaurants have perfected something of an art form in perfectly replicating all the dishes on their menu in plastic and placing the faux food in the shop window. Then it's just a matter of dragging a waitress outside and pointing at various things. You won't necessarily know what the food will taste like, but, in a big improvement over the point at Japanese characters in a menu method, you'll at least know what it will look like.