Tokyo - Kawagoe

Kawagoe is known as 'little Edo' as its main street is lined with clay walled warehouse-styled buildings and retains an ambience reminiscent of an old town from the Edo Period.   So we jumped on the train and headed out to Kawagoe, which is about 30 minutes by train from Tokyo

Our daily walk to our train station is Shin-Okubo 

 What we didn't know was that the day we chose to go to Kawagoe was also the one day in the year for their biggest float festival and where thousands of people were expected to descend onto Kawagoe!   Despite this we braved the crowds and walked from Kawagoe to the main street (literally following the crowds).  On our way, we came across one of the many uniquely Japanese pin ball parlour that we had to check out for ourselves.  

 

 

We did manage to 'drag' ourselves from the pin ball parlour and got to the old part of Kawagoe 

 

 

 

The festival was all about floats and food 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 
 

Okonomiyaki

In Kawagoe, we also visited Honmaru Goten which is the only surviving building of the Kawagoe Castle. It used to serve as the Lord's residence and offices and made a nice getaway from the crowds at the Kawagoe festival. 

 

We also found Kawagoe's Kitain Temple.   

 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 And an interesting sign on the way to the train station! 

After a long day at Kawagoe we ended up at one of the many cheap Japanese eateries near our AirBnB in Shin-Okubo. On average our meals were less than $10 a head ... the below set meal of eel on rice with side salad and miso soup was about $9 and the beef and vegetable bowl was about $7!