Looking for a quaint, tasty, cultural and easy day trip from Tokyo? Kawagoe is the place!
Known as Little Edo, it’s only 30 minutes away from Tokyo, on the Tobu line by rapid train. Home to the Edo-style buildings of the Warehouse District, Candy Lane, and more Baumkuchen than you can eat, Kawagoe also has many interesting and interactive temples.
🏯At Kita-in Temple, find the 540 aging Gohyaku Rakan statues. Each one portrays a different emotion through their impressively carved facial features. There are smiling ones, grumpy ones and some creepy-looking ones. Some are reading, whispering to their neighbour or even drinking sake! Kita-in Temple is also home to the only surviving buildings of Edo Castle (Tokyo’s Imperial Palace) from the 1600s.
💸Test your health by walking the Kenkou Path, a reflexology trail of raised rocks of various sizes and textures at Kumano Shrine. Here you can also take part in a ring toss for good fortune and cleanse your money – make sure to spend the purified money right away so that it comes back to you!
🎏Spend your afternoon at Hikawa Shrine, where you’ll find the largest wooden Torii gate in Japan! Fish for your fortune, walk through a tunnel of ema, or take part in a hitogata nagashi ritual – purify yourself by transference to a paper doll you then let drift in the stream until it breaks apart and disappears in the water.
📍Kita-in Temple
1-20-1, Kosenba-machi, Kawagoe-shi, Saitama
📍Kumano Shrine
１７−1, Renjakucho Kawagoe-shi, Saitama
📍Hikawa Shrine
１１−3 Miyashitamachi, Kawagoe-shi, Saitama
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