Thirty minutes north of Ikebukuro, the city of Kawagoe preserves one of the most intact merchant townscapes in the entire Kanto region. During the Edo period (1603β1868), Kawagoe served as a major provisioning center for the capital, and its prosperous merchants built their storehouses with an unusual solidity: thick walls of layered clay plaster on timber frames, designed to resist the fires that periodically devastated wooden Edo. When Edo burned, Kawagoe’s kura survived. The nickname “Little Edo” has stuck ever since, and the main storehouse street remains one of the few places in greater Tokyo where you can stand on a quiet morning and genuinely feel the scale and texture of a pre-modern Japanese town.
The Kurazukuri Storehouse District
The core of Kawagoe’s appeal is a 400-meter stretch of Omotesando road in the center of the city, flanked by kurazukuri storehouses dating primarily from the 1890s, when the district was rebuilt after a major fire in 1893. The construction technique that defines these buildings β multiple coats of clay plaster over a wooden framework, finished with a dark grey or brown outer plaster β produces walls that can be 30 centimeters thick. The rooflines are distinctive: heavy tiled roofs with decorative upturned eaves, and thick plaster ridges reinforcing every joint.
Today these former merchant storehouses operate as shops, cafes, and restaurants while maintaining their historic facades. The best viewing angle for photographs is from the middle of the street looking north or south in the early morning, before delivery vehicles and tour groups obscure the sightlines. The buildings have uniform window proportions β small, deeply recessed openings with heavy wooden shutters β that create a pleasing rhythm along the streetscape.
On weekday mornings before 10:00 am, the district is quiet enough that you can examine the construction details up close: the texture of the plastered walls, the heavy ironwork on the storehouse doors, the carved wooden nameplates above the entrances.
Toki no Kane Bell Tower
A short walk east of the main storehouse street, the Toki no Kane (Time Bell) tower is one of Kawagoe’s most recognizable landmarks. The tower has marked the hours for Kawagoe’s residents since the early seventeenth century β the current structure, about 16 meters tall, was rebuilt in wood after a fire in 1893, the same conflagration that destroyed much of the surrounding neighborhood.
The bell rings four times daily: at 6:00 am, noon, 3:00 pm, and 6:00 pm. The sound was selected by the Japanese government in 1996 as one of Japan’s “100 Soundscapes Remaining in Our Hearts” β a national register of acoustic environments considered worth preserving. There is no admission fee; the tower stands in a small open area and can be viewed from any direction. If your visit happens to coincide with one of the four daily ring times, pause and listen β the resonance carries surprisingly far through the surrounding streets.
Kashiya Yokocho β Candy Lane
Running perpendicular to the main storehouse street is a narrow covered alley called Kashiya Yokocho, which translates loosely as “candy shop lane.” Small sweet shops have occupied this passage since the Meiji era (1868β1912), when the alley served as a destination for children buying cheap penny sweets. Today it is still lined on both sides with small, family-run shops selling traditional Japanese confectionery.
The specialty of the alley β and of Kawagoe more broadly β is anything made from sweet potato. Saitama has been a major sweet potato-growing region since the Edo period, when the crop was among the first agricultural products transported along the road to the capital. In Kashiya Yokocho, this translates into imo-yokan (a dense, slightly sweet jelly made from sweet potato, sold in paper-wrapped blocks), dried sweet potato strips, sweet potato chips, and sweet potato soft-serve ice cream dispensed from small kiosks at the alley entrance.
Beyond sweet potato, the shops also sell nostalgic confectionery: rice crackers, sesame-coated sweets, sugar-glazed fruit skewers, and old-fashioned hard candy in paper bags. Most shops operate from approximately 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. The alley is narrow enough that on weekend afternoons it becomes nearly impassable; visiting on a weekday morning allows you to browse at leisure.
Kitain Temple β Edo Castle Relics
Of all the sights in Kawagoe, Kitain Temple is the one with the most remarkable story. The temple’s origins go back over 1,000 years, but its central claim to historical significance lies in a set of rooms transferred here from Edo Castle in 1638. These rooms, given to the temple by the third Tokugawa shogun Iemitsu, survived intact while the castle itself was later heavily damaged and ultimately lost. They are now the only surviving interior structures from the original Edo Castle, and they remain accessible to the public.
Entry to the Edo Castle transferred rooms costs Β₯400. The rooms are modest by palace standards β small, low-ceilinged chambers with original fusuma sliding doors, tatami floors worn thin by centuries of use, and faded painted screens depicting landscapes and birds. The fact that they once formed part of the most powerful residential compound in Japan is not visually obvious, but the historical weight of standing inside them is considerable.
The temple grounds also contain a garden populated by 540 stone disciples of Buddha (gohyaku rakan), each carved as an individual figure. The collection dates from the late Edo period and includes faces expressing the full range of human emotion β laughing, weeping, concentrating, sleeping. Walking among them is one of the stranger pleasures Kawagoe has to offer.
The temple is open daily, with the transferred rooms accessible 8:50 am to 4:30 pm (last entry 4:00 pm), and until 4:00 pm on weekends. It is a five-minute walk from the main storehouse street.
Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine
At the northern end of Kawagoe’s tourist circuit, approximately five minutes on foot from the storehouse street, Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine is dedicated to five deities including a married couple, making it one of the region’s primary shrines for en-musubi β the spiritual connection associated with relationships, marriage, and good fortune in love. The shrine complex is more spacious and forested than the urban streets that surround it, with a broad gravel approach and a series of wooden torii gates.
The shrine holds a Fuurin Fuurinza wind chime festival each summer (typically July), when thousands of small glass wind chimes are hung from temporary wooden frames throughout the shrine grounds. In the summer heat, the sound and visual effect of thousands of swaying, tinkling chimes is striking. The shrine also displays elaborately decorated ema votive plaques throughout the year, many decorated by local artists and visiting worshippers.
Admission to the shrine grounds is free. The attached shop sells amulets and goods related to the shrine’s en-musubi theme.
Kawagoe Festival Museum
For visitors who cannot time their trip to coincide with the Kawagoe Festival in mid-October, the Kawagoe Festival Museum (Β₯500, open 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, closed Mondays) provides context and visual reference year-round. Two full-sized festival floats β hikiyama β are displayed inside the museum, built and decorated to the same specifications as the floats used in the festival itself. These towering wooden structures, topped with elaborate figure arrangements and lacquer decorations, give a clear sense of the scale and craft involved in the festival.
The Kawagoe Festival, held on the third Saturday and Sunday of October, is recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. Enormous lacquered floats are drawn through the streets of the city by neighborhood teams while festival music plays from musicians riding inside the floats. When two floats from opposing neighborhoods meet at an intersection, they perform a ritualized musical exchange called hikkawase. The museum’s audiovisual presentations explain this ritual clearly.
Practical Tips
Getting here: From Ikebukuro Station, the Tobu Tojo Line express reaches Kawagoe Station in approximately 30 minutes (Β₯480). The Seibu Shinjuku Line also serves Kawagoe from Shinjuku (approximately 45 minutes).
Getting around: A community loop bus (Kawagoe Meibutsu Bus) circles between the main attractions every 20 minutes and costs Β₯200 per ride or Β₯500 for a day pass β useful for covering the distance between Kawagoe Station and the storehouse district, and for reaching Kitain Temple and Hikawa Shrine.
Best times to visit:
- Weekday mornings (before 10:00 am) are the best time for the storehouse district β quiet streets, good light for photography, and shops just opening
- Spring cherry blossom (late March to early April) is beautiful in Kitain’s garden
- The Kawagoe Festival (third weekend of October) is spectacular but extremely crowded β book accommodation many months in advance
- Summer weekends around the Hikawa Shrine wind chime festival are atmospheric but busy
Half-day route (4β5 hours): Arrive at Kawagoe Station by 9:00 am β walk the storehouse street before crowds arrive β visit Toki no Kane bell tower β browse Kashiya Yokocho β lunch at a sweet potato restaurant or traditional cafe on the main street β visit Kitain Temple afternoon β walk to Hikawa Shrine.
Full-day route (6β8 hours): Follow the half-day route, add the Kawagoe Festival Museum, and consider the Naritasan Kawagoe Bettein temple for a quieter contrast to the busier tourist circuit. Return to Tokyo in the early evening.