Three things to complete your Kawagoe day trip
1) Hikawa Jinja (shrine) 氷川神社
Visiting the religious place is sometimes hard.... especially that religion is not of yours and not easy to understand. And also for children.
I visited too many temples and shrines in my life. So even I feel get confused of them unless I mean to visit there on purpose.
However....these places....I really enjoyed the both, maybe for the first time, and felt really comprehensive and interesting, somewhere I can really recommend to all.
1) Hikawa Jinja (shrine) 氷川神社, by taxi 10min < 20USD / ppx
Located in the north district of Kawagoe. Each deity of shrine has his specialty.
The deity of this shrine is good at matchmaking so there you can find make-a-wish wooden tablets with the prayer saying 'Wishing he loves me' or 'Wishing I meet someone nice' etc...
Anyways, what to see .... the backyard. Little shrine houses are lined up in chain and the path with tablets.
2) Kita-in (temple)喜多院
Located in the east district of Kawagoe. The temple itself is normal but there are two attractions on site. Guest building （客殿） and Gohyaku Rakan (meaning five hundred Buddha disciples statues) （五百羅漢） These two attractions for one ticket (400yen/ppx) but it really worth the price.
1) Guest building （客殿）
The Guest building has two famous rooms brought and re-built from Edo (former capital of Tokyo) after the big fire in 1638. The room where the 3rd Edo Shogunate was born and the powder room of his nanny. It also has a Japanese garden in Enshu style.
2) Gohyaku Rakan (meaning five hundred Buddha disciples statues) （五百羅漢）
There are 540 statues, with distinctive faces. They are the disciples of Buddha. They were made around 1800. It's fun to try to find the statue with face most resembling yourself.
Shopping !!
Last but not the least....shopping.
Not just the tourist trap street. Along Ichibanbai street stand the old houses from Edo era.
Sweet potato is the well-grown crop in this region so they have varieties of foods, snacks and sweets using it.
Other than food, there are lots of hand-crafted souvenir shops, even a big attraction to local Japanese, too.
Zara
Japan
