Kimono Renting at Higashiyama District, Kyoto

I was not so lucky during the time of my visit. I thought I would be enjoying the spring but when I reached Kansai International Airport at 18 April 2018, that was the first day of summer. I had all the jacket and sweater which are useless during this time. So I decided to rent Kimono for a day while walking around the Higashiyama District. This was not a part of my plan but I got no choice because the weather becomes 32 degrees in the afternoon. 

There are a lot of Kimono rental shops at Gion area so finding such a shop is not really hard. However, to find the shop with more choices and cheapest will need more survey and early reservation is required. The shop I went cost me 4000 yen (adult) and 3000 yen (kids). Yes, it is very expensive and I do not recommend the shop that I went because the design for men and kids are limited. You can do your own survey online or just see any special discount voucher you can purchase from any travel agent app.

Different shop has different operating time. Some open as early as 9.00am while mine were opens at 10.00am. It took them more than one hour to get us ready. If you make a reservation earlier, you can skip the waiting. For female, if you want to do special hairdo, there is a different charges depending on the design you want. Please take note that no matter what time you started to rent, you need to return the clothes before the shop closes or else there are additional charges which is very costly. Some shop closed at 7.00pm and there are some closed at 8.00pm. The price is the same no matter what time you rent the clothes. So please be early to make your spending worthwhile.

After changing to our Kimono, we never felt so comfortable and cool. The Kimono suit the weather very well. However, we still need ice cream to chill ourselves.

If you have been to Japan before, you should know that their vending machines are everywhere. My son will always stop by a vending machine whenever he saw someone was buying something from the machine. By doing that, he already know how to do it. So this was his first time in his life to buy something from a vending machine. Without my help, he was able to buy the drink he wants.

By looking at his face, you can feel the satisfaction of buying your own drink is awesome. He enjoyed the drink very much and I believe that is the tastiest drink he ever drank in his whole life.

We rent our Kimono near where we stayed at Gion Shijo and we took a cab to Sanneizaka which cost us about 1000 yen. The cab in Japan is really expensive and the car-hailing service such as Uber and Grab are not getting a lot of support by the government and the locals. 

The reason for me to take a cab to Sanneizaka is to start our journey walking at the famous Higashiyama street all the way to Gion Shirakawa and back to the Kimono shop. We started our journey about 12.00pm.

The moment my son started his walk in his Kimono, he already started to draw a lot of attention. The locals will start saying him "Kawaii", "Kawaii" which means "cute", cute". While the tourists will start to pull out their phone or their camera to take photos of him.

Here are some of the photos that I managed to take while the tourists were taking his photo. My son doesn't know and he just continue enjoying himself along the road.

This uncle is Japanese and he is the only one who is polite and respectful enough to ask for my permission in English if he could take some pictures of my son. That's why I like Japan so much with such a culture.

There are food, small bites and souvenirs sold along the street. We enjoyed watching the unique things that are sold here. The street is so clean even though it is hard for us to find a dustbin. It is pretty amazing. The reason dustbin is very hard to find is because to avoid any remote controlled bombs planted inside the dustbin by terrorists. This has happened before which made the government to decide to remove all dustbins that located in the crowd. Dustbins can only be found far in some remote location away from the crowd which you can hardly find it. It is your lucky day if you able to find a dustbin in Japan.

We walked a lot and we did had our rest too. However, this little man always doesn't failed to disappoint me with his discipline by continue to walk even he doesn't know why we were walking for.

When we reached Maruyama Park, we know we are halfway through. It is amazing we able to get so far all by himself without me need to carry him. Maruyama Park (円山公園, Maruyama Kōen) is a public park next to Yasaka Shrine in the Higashiyama District. In the first half of April, when the cherry trees are in full bloom, the park becomes Kyoto's most popular and most crowded spot for cherry blossom viewing parties (hanami). The centerpiece of the park is a tall shidarezakura (weeping cherry tree), which gets lit up in the night.

I really impressed with his determination to do something with me together. He knows I am doing the same thing like him which is walking on my own and he feels it is normal for him too to do the same. There is no problem for him to cross the road because he has been taught in the school and I reminded him again when we were there which is to understand the traffic light.

Along the way, I have purchased some souvenir t-shirts for us to wear the next day since 90% of our clothes are not suitable to wear during the summer. Due to the jacket and the sweater were taking up a lot of spaces in my luggage, so I have no choice to pack the clothes in a box (which I obtained in a mart) and sent them to Kansai International Airport. So I do not have to carry them around in my journey. 

The price is not really expensive which is about RM30 for my less than 10kg box. For your information, you can send to anywhere even to a hotel or any other airport. Just take note that, it takes about an alternate day to arrive at the destination within the same prefecture. If you are sending not within the same prefecture, it will takes longer days.

This is the Gion Tatsumi Bridge or also known as Tatsumi-bashi Bridge. This bridge is over the Shirakawa stream before flowing into the Kamo River in Gion District is one of the beautiful spot in Kyoto. The area around Tatsumi-bashi is designate as a traditional architectures preservation district. This very photogenic spot is also popular for Japanese couples taking their wedding photos or girls in Maiko (Geisha) costumes for their commemorative photos.

It is another place which is crowded with people taking photos. It is hard to find a great moment to take a picture without any people around it.

As I have mentioned earlier, vending machine is his most favourite thing in Japan. The second thing would be a public telephone booth. There are still many public telephone booths that are still operating in Japan even though smartphone has becomes in common. Their public telephone can let you call overseas too.

Fulfilling my mission by dropping by at a post office to send postcard back to my friend, Ms. Grace who has this special request to their friends who are travelling overseas. Everyone got their weird habit.

As for me, my weird habit is to enjoy all the hairdressers around the world and experience how it is done. I and my son had our haircut done.

It was really an expensive haircut in Japan. Both of us spent almost RM400 for our hair. Not kidding! The service is attentive but almost what you will get in Malaysia. So nothing special to be expected here in Japan. If I have to insist to say one difference that would be their haircut for men took about 30 minutes to finish while in Malaysia you would probably only take about 10 minutes. That's all for the difference.

My son with his new haircut. He is energetic again but it is time for us to return our Kimono. It was an incredible walk for us. We returned our Kimono after 6.00pm. The staffs were expecting us the moment we arrived.

As you can see from his face, he really doesn't know what fatigue means. He is really an incredible boy. It was always fun to bring him along with me as he is truly my great travel partner. The weather is getting cold at night and our jacket is useful at this moment. Personally, I would recommend to have this Kimono renting experience whenever you are in Japan. It is great for photo. The thing you need to do is to do a survey and booking before you arrive in Japan. So you can know where has the most choices at the cheapest price. 

Total Damage: 4000 yen(adult), 3000 yen(kids)*
Recommended?: Yes, at least once.
Operating Hours: 10.00am - 7.00pm*
*Note: Different shops has different prices and operating hours