Kashiya Yokocho
sightseeing
Basic Information
Business hours / Fee
How to get there
・Get off at “Honkawagoe Station” of the Seibu Shinjuku Line and walk for about 15 minutes.
Fee: None
Map
Nearby spots
The large purple noren (shop curtain with its emblem and name) by the entrance of the Kawagoe Kashiya Yokochō (Candy Alley) marks the location of this candy store. A wide variety of sweets including, kura manjū (Japanese-style bun stuffed with sweetened bean paste), sweet potato yōkan (sweetened bean jelly), potato sweets, and rice crackers produced at the store are sold. We are capable of assisting you in basic English.
The two genuine Dashis (festival cars) that has been pulled at the Kawagoe Festival is on display along with materials related to the Kawagoe Festival. The powerful atmosphere of the Kawagoe Festival can be physically felt all year round. In addition, there is a demonstration of musical accompaniment (about 20 minutes) on a regular basis at the exhibition hall.
The Kawagoe Kurazukuri Museum was built by Koyama Bunzō, a tobacco wholesaler, right after the great fire in 1893 with reference to the few houses of Kurazukuri and Tokyo’s Nihonbashi Merchant that were not exposed to the fire. The design, structure, and the inside of the Kurazukuri House of Kawagoe can be toured, and a breath of Meiji’s atmosphere can be felt to this day.
Toki no Kane is said to have been first built in the Castletown Tagachō during the Kan’ei era (1624-1644) by the lord of Kawagoe Castle, Sakai Tadakatsu. The current bell tower was rebuilt the year following Kawagoe’s great fire in 1893, and is a three-story tower with a height of about 16 meters. It is a symbol of Kawagoe and denotes that “time” is indispensable for daily life. As of today, the bell rings four times a day (6 am, noon, 3 pm, and 6 pm).
A townscape of “kura warehouses” still remains in Kawagoe. The kura warehouses were cleverly built with fireproof architecture and developed as housing for the merchants of Edo. The warehouses retain an image of Edo that cannot be seen in modern day Tokyo. They were chosen as national “Important Preservation Districts for Groups of Traditional Buildings” in December of 1999 and were selected as one of “Japan’s 100 Beautiful Historical Environments” in January of 2007.