Studera utomlands

After being in Tokyo for a month and a half, I decided to take my 1^st day trip to Kawagoe. Kawagoe is a town just 30 minutes by train from Tokyo. Known as “Little Edo”, it’s famous for its Edo-period buildings, temples, shrines and candy stores.

🚆 Travelling to Kawagoe

After purchasing a Kawagoe discount pass, I took the train from Ikebukuro in the morning. It’s a cute little pass for 710 yen that includes a return train ticket, making it slightly cheaper than a normal ticket. The train ride was peaceful, and I arrived in Kawagoe in no time at all!

🍱 Lunch!

I arrived in Kawagoe around 1130 and decided to eat before exploring. Since I heard that Kawagoe is known for its Unagi (eel), I decided to get that for lunch. I went to a restaurant close to the station, and hoped that it would not be as crowded as the ones in the tourist areas. It wasn’t crowded, but there was still a line, and it took around 15 minutes before I was seated. Nonetheless, the food was delicious when it came!

I spoke to someone else who was in line while we waited, and I found out that they were a PhD student from Spain also visiting UTokyo from January to May, working in the biomedical field too! It was a hilarious coincidence, and we ended up chatting and exploring the city together.

⛩️ Temples

The main area is a 30-minute walk from the station, so we visited the temples and shrines on the way. There are several of them, each with a peaceful atmosphere.

I was strolling past the path towards another temple when I noticed a little corner of cute trinkets arranged on top of a tree trunk. I don’t know who placed them there, or if this is usual, but it was adorable.

🔔 Main Street

Finally, we arrived at the main street where both sides of the road were lined with edo-style buildings (the cover image). However, the place was very crowded, making it hard to enjoy the view when squeezing past crowds. Nonetheless, we made our way through and visited the popular bell tower.

Since Kawagoe is also known for their sweet potato, it was easy to get one on the way. I got a crème brulée one which seemed pretty fancy. It was a bit overpriced, but I won’t complain too much since it was delicious! 😋

We walked around a bit more and visited their candy alley (which was also very crowded) before finally deciding to leave the area. We ended up walking for 40 minutes to a local onsen to relax, before making our way back to Tokyo around 1830.

🍜 Dinner!

To end the night, we got ramen for dinner before going home and collapsing for the day.

While Kawagoe wasn’t a distant location, it was a nice place for a short trip! Due to the long weekend, it could have been more crowded the day I went, so maybe it won’t be as bad some other days. But that’s that for my first day trip!