...wa doko desu ka?

You have to keep digging and "wa doko desu ka"-ing.  Eventually you'll find what you're looking for.  A major difference I've found between New York and Kyoto (or Tokyo) is that people here often don't know where specific streets are.  In New York you can ask anyone where any street is and they will get you within a block of your destination.  I think it has something to do with the very vague and puzzling postal system in Japan.  House numbers and street names seem to be general information for the neighborhood or quarter rather than exact locations.  I think even the locals find it befuddling.
I had been on the hunt for an art store since I arrived.  I had passed many traditional calligraphy shops with beautiful and expensive art materials - brushes, ink, paper.  I had passed many stationery stores with basic office supplies - pens, notebooks, envelopes.  I had even passed a couple of proper art stores that specialize in watercolor pigment.  Amazing places.  But I was looking for the Pearl Paint of Kyoto - some place with a large selection of art supplies at reasonable prices.  I was walking down Karasuma Dori when I saw some people in the windows at Takashimaya painting a giant mural on the wall.  Ah-ha!  My people: artists doing visual display, cool cats with matching yellow jumpsuits.  I asked them, "Bijutsu mise wa doko des ka?"  A girl wrote down Gwasen Do in Kanji on a slip of paper and gave me vague directions in English.  A day later I found it.  Victory!