川越　まつり　Kawagoe Matsuri

Went to Kawagoe, Saitama prefecture, for one of the "top 3 festivals in the Kanto region". Have always wanted visit Kawagoe so it was a perfect opportunity.

Kawagoe has the nickname of　小江戸　Koedo or Little Edo (Edo is Tokyo's former name). Kawagoe has managed to retain the traditional atmosphere that Tokyo has lost from the many Edo-period traditional black-walled warehouses that remain standing. These fire-proof clay warehouses are called 蔵造り Kurazukuri. The town is all decked out for the festival.

The annual Kawagoe festival apparently started some 350 years ago and boasts 3-4 tiered floats with local folk dancing and playing music in the float and a life-sized doll on the very top. The 7m-high floats are on wheels and pulled by 30-odd people.

I arrived early in the morning so that I had time for sightseeing before the festival started and caught the locals making their final preparations.

Every year, each town in the city prepares its own float. There were about 15 floats participating in the festival. The villagers posing for a photo with their float.
View of the people pulling a float from the second level of the Kurazukuri Shiryokan (Kurazukuri Museum).

Performance from the floats

If you can't view the video below, use this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrVYjU_bVKI

Stumbled upon a Noh (traditional Japanese opera performed by ladies) performance. Use this link if you can't view the video below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMoJKLIRODA

菓子屋横丁　Kashiya Yokocho (candy lane). Kawagoe is known for traditional Japanese sweets.　

Kawagoe just held its sweet potato harvesting festival the day before so there was sweet potato doughnuts, sweet potato ice-cream, sweet potato manju (steamed buns), sweet potato everything! These are sweet potato manju (basically like our paus)

時の鐘　Toki-no-kane (Bell Tower). First built in 1600s. Stands at 16m tall. Chimes 4 times a day. Termed one of the top 100 soundscapes of Japan (?!). Sounds like any ordinary bell. (Just a thought, maybe we should do something similar as a tourism gimmick...hawker shouting "sio ah sio ah" - top 10 soundscapes of Singapore; durians at Geylang - top 10 smellscapes of Singapore)

Traditional rickshaw

本丸御殿　Honmaru Goten. Built in 1800s. The only remaining building of the Kawagoe Castle. Built from wood, rather unimpressive-looking on the outside but the interior is quite nice. Is something like a museum now and has a pretty Japanese zen garden.

喜多院　Kitain Temple is the head temple of the Tendaishu buddhist sect in the Kanto area. Built in 830. Saw some monks conducting prayer rites in the temple.

五百羅漢 Gohyaku-rakan. Literally means 500 disciples of Buddha. These 538 statues are
displayed in the Kitain Temple compound show the disciples in various standing, sitting and lying positions with different facial expressions.

At night, the floats "battle" by playing music loudly and trying to get the other float to go off-beat. It became really rowdy and crowded...impossible to walk, like Chinatown during Chinese New Year.