❖ Meet at Hon-Kawagoe Station

12:00

Your guide greets you at the ticket gate of Hon-Kawagoe Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line, only about thirty minutes from central Tokyo. From here you set off on foot into Kawagoe, the old castle town nicknamed Little Edo, whose streets still mix the look of three eras, Edo, Meiji, and Taisho.

❖ Kita-in Temple

12:20 - 13:00 (40 min)

Kita-in Temple was founded in 830 AD and has long served as a leading temple in the Kanto region. After a fire destroyed the original buildings, several rooms of Edo Castle were moved here from the Imperial Palace site in 1638 to help rebuild the temple, and they survive to this day as the only remaining palace buildings of the original Edo Castle, which itself was lost to World War 2 and the Great Kanto Earthquake.

The temple gardens were laid out in the Edo style, with carp ponds, mossy stone lanterns, and a quiet wooden veranda. Walk slowly: the design draws the eye toward distant elements that fold into the foreground only as you move.

Beyond the main hall sit the Gohyaku Rakan, a grouping of 538 stone statues representing the disciples of the Buddha. Each face is different, some serene, some grimacing, some laughing or weeping, and a local tradition holds that the rakan whose face most resembles your own will share something of your character.

❖ Hikawa Shrine

13:15 - 13:45 (30 min)

Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine has presided over Little Edo for more than 1,500 years and is best known throughout Japan as a shrine of enmusubi, the binding of fortunate connections in matchmaking and love. The shrine houses five deities, two of which form married pairs, and singles seeking partners as well as long-married couples come here to pray for harmony and a long, prosperous marriage.

Step through the great torii at the front of the precinct, which at fifteen metres ranks among the tallest wooden torii in the country, and the inner grounds open up around the main hall with its cypress beams blackened by centuries of incense.

What sets Hikawa Shrine apart is its omikuji fortune slips. Where most shrines hand them out in folded paper, here the omikuji are concealed inside wooden fish carved in the shape of tai (sea bream), a homophone for fortune in Japanese. Large basins on either side of the path hold the fish in red, pink, and white. A small donation in the side box, a short rod from the rack, and you go fishing for your luck.

Once you catch one, you twist the paper from inside. White and pink fish carry fortunes in love; red fish speak to general luck in health, work, study, and the year ahead. Many visitors keep the wooden fish as a small souvenir of the day.

❖ Candy Alley

14:10 - 14:25 (15 min)

Kashiya Yokocho, the Candy Alley, is a short cobbled lane whose sweet shops have traded here since the start of the Meiji era in 1868. The old storefronts still hand-make traditional Japanese sweets, including stick candy, rice crackers, and Kawagoe's famous sweet-potato treats, the kind you will not find in any supermarket.

❖ Warehouse District

14:25 - 15:00 (35 min)

The Warehouse District is lined with the black, clay-walled kurazukuri merchant warehouses of the Edo period (1603 to 1867). Back then Kawagoe was an important town supplying resources to the capital, Edo, and its merchants grew wealthy and built these elaborate houses and storehouses, many of which still operate as shops you can step inside today.

Rising above the rooftops is the Toki no Kane, the 350-year-old Bell Tower that is the very symbol of Kawagoe. It still chimes four times a day, at 6:00, 12:00, 15:00, and 18:00, marking the hours over Little Edo just as it has for centuries.

❖ Matsumoto Craft Soy Sauce

15:00 - 15:20 (20 min)

Matsumoto Craft Soy Sauce has carried on the tradition of brewing soy sauce in Kawagoe for more than 250 years, still using the same traditional methods passed down through the generations. You can tour the workshop and learn about a process that has flavoured Japanese cooking for centuries. (Factory tour available on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays only.)

❖ Koedo Kurari

15:35 - 15:50 (15 min)

Your walk finishes at Koedo Kurari, set inside a sake brewery that has produced Japanese sake in Kawagoe for nearly 120 years. The original timber beams and earthen walls have been kept intact, so the converted hall still carries the cool, faintly fermented air of a working brewery.

Sample flights of local Saitama sake at the counter and browse the shelves of regional souvenirs, from craft snacks to ceramics, to take a taste of Little Edo home with you.

❖ Finish at Hon-Kawagoe (or Kawagoe) Station

16:00

The tour ends at Hon-Kawagoe Station, or at Kawagoe Station if more convenient for your onward plans, after a relaxed half-day through the temples, shrines, and merchant streets of Little Edo.