RyokOhio: The Lewises In Japan Blog: Japan Trip 2019, Day 4: Kawagoe

Today we "slept in" by waking up at 8 instead of 5 or 6 a.m. Even your best preparations to fight jet lag won't work completely. It was yet another beautiful, sunny day and a great day to visit the town of Kawagoe! First off, I'd like to say how lucky we've been weather-wise on this trip. I packed for a cold fall, but it's been pretty warm! Tuesday and Wednesday were in the low to mid 70s and yesterday and today were maybe a little cooler and in the high 60s! And nothing but sunshine and clear skies each and every day. It's great!

Okay, back to Kawagoe. In the Saitama prefecture, this city has a section with original storehouses, and buildings, giving you that feel of walking back in time to the Edo period. In fact, it's often called "Koedo" or little Edo because it resembles Japan's old capital so much. A quickly growing tourist destination, we were lucky to have gone on a weekday and in the morning, because it is supposedly packed on weekends! The sidewalks are narrow and they don't shut down the streets to traffic, so you have to be careful while walking that you don't get clipped by a car!

Our walk toward the major temple, Kita-in was really pleasant and quiet, as Google Maps decided to take us a weird back way through residential streets and past a high school where the poor kids were running laps around the block. Ahhh, so nice being on vacation (and out of school)!

Kita-in is the major temple of the area, but there are many small ones as well. We visited Kumano Shrine as well. I watched some women take a strainer basket, put some money into it, and wash it in a pond, so that was a neat little ritual you don't see. I did walk over a path of varying spiky/bumpy/pebbly/sharp/digging stones for my health! Yeehaw! I guess I might as well go all out in punishing my feet this trip!

Kawagoe's most famous landmark is the wooden bell tower called Toki no Kane. Built in 1630, and then destroyed in a fire and rebuilt in 1894, this clock chimes 4 times a day (we didn't get to hear it). A little off the beaten path, on a side street by the delicious donut I had, it makes for a great photo spot!

The walk around Kawagoe is lined with TONS of shops, some souvenir, but mostly food. I had a tofu donut, yaki dango, sweet and purple potato ice cream, and grilled sweet potato (looked like a grilled onigiri). All of them were SUPER delicious! A little old lady saw me ordering the yaki dango and asked if I liked it and seemed pretty surprised I was able to answer her that I enjoyed eating yaki dango. It's nice to believe your nihongo is jouzu. >_< Are you seeing a theme in the foods? Kawagoe is famous for their sweet potato, or imo, as well as eel (didn't get around to eating any of that, maybe next time). We got to meet the most famous of sweet potatoes, the Kawagoe mascot Tokimo! She was walking down a side street so we quickly waved and took a photo as she waddled on by.

We came, we saw, we ate delicious foods, but our feet were starting to complain so we turned around to start the long trek back to the station. The streets are lined with little signs and decorations on the posts for the 2020 Olympics, where Kawagoe will be the location for the golf Olympic games!

By the time we reached the station we were pretty hungry and craving something filling. A perfect time for ramen!! I have yet to have the famous Ichiran ramen, so now was the time to try it. Our train from Kawagoe ended at Ikebukuro station, and there was an Ichiran ramen there. Oh man. The broth. Oh man oh man. It was PERFECT! Okay, I gotta admit the pork was pretty sad, and the noodles weren't anything life changing, but the broth? AMAZING!! I love tonkotsu, or pork, broth and it's their signature broth. You can make the soup to your liking by circling options on a little paper you hand to the chef. I asked for soft noodles, extra rich broth, one step up from normal garlic (it was VERY garlic-y, so I'm afraid what extreme garlic tastes like) and normal spice level. It was SO good! THIS IS THE BROTH TASTE THAT ELUDES ME IN THE STATES! Or at least in the part of America we live in.

Well, while in Ikebukuro, the anime mecca that caters a lot to female otaku, might as well go shopping! This seems to be our theme: wear out our feet during the day, start to head home, and then get the urge to shop and ignore our throbbing feet a few hours more.

Needless to say, more weeb stuff was bought, and we got off the train at Akihabara for our hotel and turned in for the night (but not before stopping into Family Mart and getting a drink and an ice cream).