Kawagoe

I had friends visiting from the Philippines: Robbie, Pat, Regine, Leonard, Ayla, and Gio. We had spent a night earlier in Akihabara with some other people as they were a huge group but today, only the initial six people are coming with me to Kawagoe after I proposed the idea.

It's my first time here as well so I was quite excited to explore this quaint town with a huge group. The weather was rainy and cold but it wasn't about to dampen the spirits of the group. We pushed on with me leading the group to Kawagoe Old Town. We stopped by the souvenir store, Koedo Kurari, first to warm up and take a toilet break.

The next stop was a Shinto shrine known as Kawagoe Kumano where the mascot was the Yatagarasu, the Three-legged Crow. A peaceful place with a chic vibe. Another huge temple at the side was Renkeiji Temple, a Buddhist temple this time around.

At this point, we have reached the main street and the gang was now in a food eating frenzy, stopping by almost every stall to get a taste of whatever snackeroos were being offered. We had unagi inside egg, unagi balls, skewers, sweet potatoes, and more!

Soon enough, we reached the famous bell tower and the nearby Starbucks where we got the chance to rest and plan the rest of the day. Ayla and Gio had to go back as they still had other plans in Tokyo which was quite unfortunate as the best was yet to come. We decided to get lunch first in the form of Omurice since they still hadn't had the chance to try one in Japan.

From there we walked a long route by the river towards Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine, perhaps one of the main highlights of the day. There was much to see and do here, including the ema tunnel, black lantern corridors, and some misogi rituals involving paper dolls that we floated on the river. This place also had one of the largest torii gates in Japan.

Another long walk took us to Kawagoe Castle Honmaru Palace, we had the place all to ourselves and it was an interesting experience. A huge place to explore and we had tons of fun photo opportunities as well. They still had to catch an omakase dinner back in Tokyo so we hurried over to the final stop of the day: Kita-in Temple where there were 500 Rakan Statues, the disciples of the Buddha. We had initially thought it was closed but turns out we had to buy tickets to see the statues and explore the temple interior. We got inside and were able to take a better look. The main statue in the center standing above the rest was, of course, Shakyamuni Buddha. To his right was Amitabha Buddha and to the left stood, Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha. Each statue had their own unique pose and character which was really fascinating! We were able to take some amazing shots with the pagoda in the background as well.

We pushed on to explore the temple's interior which had the scent of incense and plenty of Buddhist relics and artifacts amongst other treasuries. When everyone was satisfied, we began the walk back to the station and they were able to make it just in time for their dinner as well.Weiterlesen