- Belgium comes to Yamashita Park
- Residential Villa in Phuket Entices Remote Workers With Long-Stay Rates
- Rare pieces of French glass art at the Mirai Museum of Art
- Feast on fresh fish and seafood at the 2024 ‘Sakana’ Festival
- Would you like to ride in a Louis Vuitton gondola lift?
- Naked Snow Aquarium
- Festive lights at Yomiuriland will get you feeling the holiday vibes
A day trip to Kawagoe
On the opposite side of the main street, a few blocks down, you will find the reason why your kids will become fans of Kawagoe… the “candy street.” Kashiya Yokocho is a small lane of candy shops, offering an impressive array of traditional confections with incredible designs and colors – multi- colored swirls, candies with faces, flower-shaped candies, and also, all forms of sweet potatoes – the local specialty. In addition to sampling some of the lovely hard candies, we tried candied sweet potatoes, sweet potato chips, and fried sweet potatoes. All very tasty!
Once everyone’s sweet tooth was satisfied, we moved onto more cultural pursuits… Kawagoe has several notable shrines and temples. Hikawa Shrine was built in 514, and boasts the tallest wooden torii in Japan. Wander down the path to the left of the main shrine to see some incredible wood carving on the original building. You have to peer through the gates to get a view, but the carving is amazing. Also in Kawagoe is the Kitain Temple, the regional head temple of the Tendai sect of Buddhism. Originally built in 830, and rebuilt in 1638 after a devastating fire, Katain Temple is home to the last existing rooms from the original Edo Castle, donated by Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu after the 1638 fire. Also on the temple grounds are the gohyaku-rakan – 538 stone statues of the disciples of Buddha. Each statue features a different pose or expression – really good fun for adults and kids to wander around and explore.
Somewhere in our reading, we had seen mention of a castle in Kawagoe. A little further investigating revealed that Honmaru Goten is actually the home of a Lord who lived on the castle grounds of Kawagoe Castle, and the castle itself is no longer in existence. However, the wooden building, built in 1848, was interesting to walk through. (It reminded me of Nijo Castle in Kyoto, but without the squeaky floors.) Walking through the wooden corridors, peering into the tatami mat rooms, it rounded out our “old Edo step back in time” tour quite nicely.
While there are several museums (including one that features really elaborate festival floats and looks like a definite must on my next visit), temples, flea markets, and much more too see in Kawagoe, by this point in our day, we were tired and ready to head home.
We hopped on the Co-Edo bus and headed back to the station. A little over and hour later, we were back in modern-day Tokyo, in our neighborhood, walking home from the subway station.
Note: Each October, Kawagoe hosts their annual festival, with elaborate floats, costumes, music and general good fun. This year, the festival will take place on October 15th & 16th. http://kawagoematsuri.jp/English/about.html
How to get there: Take the Tobu Tojo line from Ikebukuro Station to Kawagoe Station. The fare is ¥450. Look carefully at the signage in Ikebukuro for the Tobu Tojo line. There are several different express trains – take one of those instead of the local train. The express trains take about 30 minutes, while the local can take quite a bit longer.