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Kawagoe is a city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, about 30 minutes by train northwest of central Tokyo. It is known as Koedo, or Little Edo, because its old streets keep more of the look of Edo-period Tokyo than Tokyo itself.
Kawagoe Castle was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan and his father, and through the Edo period the town was a castle town guarding the north of the shogun's capital. Its merchants grew rich shipping goods to Edo by river, and after a great fire in 1893 they rebuilt their shops as kurazukuri, heavy clay-walled storehouses with black plaster fronts made to resist the flames.
Today the street of these storehouses, the wooden bell tower of Toki no Kane and the candy shops of Kashiya Yokocho draw large crowds, especially at weekends. Close by are Kita-in, a temple holding rooms moved from Edo Castle and more than 500 stone disciples of the Buddha, and the Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine, home of the great float festival held each October.
Kurazukuri Street, the Ichibangai district of Kawagoe, is lined with heavy clay-walled shops built after the great fire of 1893, their black plaster fronts made to resist fire. The townscape is protected as a historic district, and its old merchant houses now sell sweets, crafts and eel.
Toki no Kane is the 16-meter wooden bell tower rising over the storehouse streets of Kawagoe, first built in the early Edo period by the lords of the castle and now the symbol of the city. The present tower was raised after the great fire of 1893, and its bell still rings four times a day.
Kashiya Yokocho, or Candy Lane, is a short cobbled alley of old-fashioned sweet shops in the old town of Kawagoe, whose trade began here in 1796. Around 20 small shops sell hard candies, sweet potato snacks and very long sticks of fu-gashi, under the eaves of low wooden houses.
Taishō Roman Street is a gently curving shopping street of about 200 meters in central Kawagoe, south of the storehouse district. Some 30 shops in Western-style facades of the 1920s and 1930s line its granite paving, and the street is often used for filming dramas set in that era.
Kawagoe Castle Honmaru Goten is the surviving part of the main palace of Kawagoe Castle in Kawagoe, built in 1848 for the lords of the domain. Its grand entrance with a curved roof and tatami halls is one of only two castle palaces of this kind left in Japan, and is open to visitors.
Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine is the main shrine of Kawagoe, said to date from 541, and the home of the Kawagoe Festival held each October. It is popular as a shrine of good matches, and each summer more than 2,000 Edo-style glass wind chimes hang along its grounds and ring with wishes.
Miyoshino Shrine stands in the old castle grounds of Kawagoe, older than the castle itself, with a hall rebuilt in 1624 on the order of the shogun Iemitsu. Its narrow approach is said to be the path sung of in Tōryanse, the well-known children's song played at pedestrian crossings in Japan.
Kawagoe Festival Museum opened in 2003 near the storehouse district in Kawagoe, to show the Kawagoe Festival, a float festival of more than 360 years now on the UNESCO list. Two of the towering festival floats are always on display, and on Sundays local groups perform festival music.
Kita-in is a great Tendai temple in the Senba area of Kawagoe, founded in 830 and rebuilt under the shogun Iemitsu after a fire in 1638. Rooms moved here from Edo Castle survive in its halls, said to include the room where Iemitsu was born, and it draws huge crowds at New Year.
Gohyaku Rakan is the garden of stone statues of the disciples of the Buddha at Kita-in temple in Kawagoe, carved between 1782 and 1825. There are more than 530 of them, each with its own face and pose, and legend says that one head touched at night will feel warm and resemble a lost parent.
Senba Tōshō-gū is the shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu beside Kita-in in Kawagoe, set up in 1617 by the monk Tenkai and counted with Nikkō and Kunōzan among the three great Tōshō-gū. Rebuilt after the fire of 1638, it keeps a stone torii of that year and paintings of 36 poets by Iwasa Matabei.
Naritasan Kawagoe Betsuin is a temple of the fire god Fudō Myōō in the north of central Kawagoe, revived in 1853 and the first branch of Naritasan Shinshō-ji of Chiba. On the 28th of each month its grounds fill with an antiques flea market, and in November it holds a fire-walking rite.
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