Another Day in Koedo Kawagoe

After picking up my visa yesterday, decided to goto the city council (市役所) again to update my registration status today. It wasn't much hassle but decided to settle things ASAP.

But before I can get out, saw there's a parcel notice for me. I thought it's the university's documents, but turns out to be the goods I ordered from White Rabbit Press few days ago.



The contents, which I'll go through more details at the end of the post.


After 20 mins cycling, reached the city council and had the registrations done in a matter of minutes. Swift and efficient, that's the Japanese way to do things.

The Koedo old town (小江戸) isn't that far away, so decided to park my bike somewhere around there and explore the rest of the place by foot.
Chose to park at the Kawagoe Festival Museum (川越まつり会館).



Am glad that today's weather was gloriously sunny, making pics-taken much lifelier than my previous visit.

Just to remind folks, this Koedo old township is said to exist since the 1800's, with some of the buildings still remain intact until today. Many traditional buildings in Tokyo were destroyed due to earthquake and war bombardment, so the closest traditional township in Tokyo would be the Kawagoe Koedo.
To get there is quite simple, just take Tobu Tojo line (東武東上線) at Ikebukuro for a 40 mins train ride.

Traditional shops.




Entrance to a shrine.


The tourist bus of Koedo.



A very nice Japanese Zen garden inside a shop. It's kinda hidden and it leads to a traditional restaurant. Judging from the setting, the meal wouldn't be cheap.


You gotta gave these workers credit for repairing and restoring the traditional buildings as surely it isn't an easy job.


Besides traditional Japanese styled buildings, there're a few Western ones too.




As you can see, the weather is great! :D



The landmark clocktower (時の鐘).


Spotted this Meiji milk vending machine, hat tip to Lester for pointing it out in his post as he just visited Koedo too, few days ago.


The chill milk coffee tasted nice! Cost 130 yen.


While randomly walking down the alleys, spotted this sakura tree just beside an Audi TT heh.





Continuous walk easily drives the stomach hungry. Ended up taking in this turtle-like pancake, sakura flavor. Just tasted normal though.


Few streets down the corner is another tourist spot, the candy street (菓子屋横丁).




VW Type 2 van being converted into a mobile cafe.


As I'm pretty much done with the Koedo town, cycled to further away to look for unexplored territory.

The Kawagoe Museum and Arts Gallery look more like factory to me. Should've build it with more traditional flavour to match the city's traditional image.


Nearby is the Kawagoe Castle (川越城) which was under restoration. It'll only be done in 2 years time though.


Supposingly this is how it looks like centuries ago.


Random shrines scattering around~


Spring festival (春まつり), which is very soon....


Taking a peek into a shrine.




I like how this tree is branched out.


Another temple compound. This is the Hikawa Shrine (氷川神社).


This stone is said to look like a dog's head?


Nice wooden sculptures.





Very soon, this will probably be one of the best spots to see sakura bloom.


While going to find out another shrine, visited Kitain (喜多院) again and spotted it's getting ready for matsuri!



The shrine I wanted to visit was this Nakain (中院) just a few streets away from Kitain.
Just a few steps into the compound I immediately like the place.

Zen garden. Would be better if there's water flowing.






Dunno what flower is this, it's starting to bloom.



I'm lucky that I've bump into a hidden area where there's this mixture of bright pink and green.




Close up of the flowers.



Pink bloom blast!


Few more takes of the green and pink combination.




Statues of Buddhas and Buddhism avatars (deity, not the blue creature with the USB-like tail).


Back to hostel around 4pm++. Now is time to review the goods I received earlier....

The other day I've won a $200 online shop voucher from Tokyo.Japan Times by contributing this article.

Otaku Encyclopedia. Kesenaitsumi requested for this one.



Something more useful to me, an atlas of Tokyo!


Can you guess where this page shows?


Another map, this time is a portable railway maps around Tokyo. Calvin could make use of this I think.


Nicely designed, very different from the usual maps we get at the train stations.


This part gives a hint on the question I asked above. ^^


"1Q84" written by Murakami Haruki. Read it's a popular novel so wanna try it out.


It'll be quite a challenge for me to complete reading this book full with Japanese characters without any graphics at all.


Few books to help me to further improve my Japanese language. Covers verbs, proverbs, and some phonetic adverbs?


Reading the book feels like studying back in ABK hah.


All thanks again to Tokyo.Japan Times and White Rabbit Press for the wonderful gifts! :D