Old Japan inside New Japan

The New York Times has an article by Ken Belson about Tokyo, then and now:

To learn about Tokyo, you sometimes have to leave it. The capital has been rebuilt so many times that those wanting a glimpse of what it looked like years ago head to places like the Museum Meiji-Mura, more than two hours away. But the city of Kawagoe, right in Tokyo’s backyard, is a more practical alternative. Less than 45 minutes by train, the center of Kawagoe is filled with a well-preserved collection of century-old kura, or warehouses, that still double as stores, workshops, and homes.
Many kura are clustered around an even-older wooden clock tower and a jumble of buildings from the Taisho and early Showa eras that create the feel of a small town with a charm missing in many Japanese cities. A former castle town, Kawagoe does such a good job evoking the Tokyo of yore that it is affectionately called Little Edo, a reference to the ancient name for Tokyo.
Its streetscape is so authentic that NHK, the national television broadcaster, is filming one of its serialized morning dramas in Kawagoe, a city of 330,000. That has stirred further interest. One afternoon in June, busloads of Japanese grandmothers and grandfathers ambled up and down the city’s streets admiring the three dozen or so kura, the old-time candy shops, and the graceful Kitain Temple.
But, as I learned more than two decades ago when I taught in the city, the real crowds arrive during the third weekend of October, when Kawagoe puts on one of the most colorful street festivals in the country, replete with three-ton rolling floats.
There is little reason to wait, though. Because Kawagoe is a bedroom community for Tokyo office workers, the train service there is frequent and inexpensive, and the city’s best sites can be covered on foot in a few hours. Locals have also opened a healthy number of restaurants that proudly serve food and sake grown and brewed in the area.
“Kawagoe predates Edo as the capital, so we’re not happy about being called Little Edo,” said Yoshiharu Hibiki, the owner of the restaurant Kurobuta Gekijo and a member of the Kawagoe Style Club, a civic booster group. “We’re the original Edo.”
You can settle the historical debate by taking a Tobu Tojo express train that leaves from Ikebukuro and gets to Kawagoe in 30 minutes (450 yen, or about $4.65 at 97 yen to the dollar). Or you can take a New Red Arrow express train, which leaves about once an hour (890 yen) from Seibu Shinjuku Station. With reserved seats, the Seibu trains are a more comfortable ride. After zipping past Tokyo’s claustrophobic neighborhoods, tea fields, and factories, they also leave you at Hon Kawagoe Station, an ideal place to start a walking tour.
Cross the bus plaza and head up Chuo Dori or the quieter street mall one block behind it. From there, go north and you’ll pass shops and homes built after World War Two. Gradually they’ll give way to prewar buildings when you reach the Taisho Roman Dori. There you will see a collection of buildings from the Taisho era (1912-1924), including Shimano Kohi Taisho Kan (Renjyaku-cho 13-7; 81-49-225-7680; www.koedo.com/taisyoukan), a coffee shop with Art Deco lettering outside and cups of silky coffee for 600 yen inside.
A hundred or so yards up the road is the Kawagoe Chamber of Commerce building. Its handsome stone pillars are evocative of a Midwestern bank building and of a time when Japan ardently emulated the West. After a left turn and a quick right, you are back on Chuo Dori, which here becomes Ichibangai, where most of the kura are concentrated.
While many kura in Japan are white, Kawagoe’s were blackened with charcoal in keeping with the style during the late Nineteenth century. The thick, four-layered doors outside the second-floor windows were designed to contain fires and keep them from spreading to neighboring buildings. The kura were used as storehouses for rice and other commodities and survived largely because Kawagoe’s landlords resisted the arrival of the railways during the Meiji Era. As a consequence, industry was late to arrive, and Allied bombers focused on other cities during World War Two.
Today, the kura are retail shops that sell sake, pickles, and every possible concoction using the sweet potatoes famously grown nearby. Some kura have become tea shops and restaurants serving soba noodles and unagi, or broiled eel, another popular local delicacy.
The center of activity along the street is Kawagoe’s signature building, the picturesque Toki no Kane, or bell tower. First erected nearly four hundred years ago, the current 54-foot version was rebuilt after a fire in 1893 and is held up with single cedar logs. The bell is no longer rung by hand, but chimes four times a day.
Cross the main street to reach the Kawagoe Matsuri Kaikan, or festival museum. (2-1-10-Moto Machi; 81-49-225-2727; 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., April to September, 300 yen). Inside are several of the ornate floats, some reaching as high as three stories, used in the festival each year. “The higher, the better to reach the gods,” said Toru Ohkouchi, the museum’s director. Nothing replaces seeing the organized mayhem of the event live, but the museum has videos of recent festivals and on Sunday afternoons hosts bands that play festival songs on shakuhachi bamboo flutes and taiko drums.
Two streets behind the museum is Kashiya Yokocho, a charming lane with fourteen candy and children’s gift shops from the early Showa era. The stores are converted warehouses that once stored liquid sugar. One shop still cranks out hard taffy.
Though a fifteen-minute detour off the main road, the Kitain temple (Kosenbamachi 1; 400 yen) is worth the walk. With roots dating back to A.D. 830, the temple grew in prominence in the late Sixteenth Century when the shogun visited Kawagoe. After a fire in 1638 destroyed the temple, the shogun sent buildings from Edo Castle to Kawagoe. The highlight, though, is the five hundred stone statues of Buddhist monks showing every manner of emotions. In a contemplative corner of the temple grounds, the monks are thinking, laughing, drinking sake, and even picking their noses.
As you return to the main street and the train station, stop for lunch at Ichinoya (1-18-10 Matsue-cho; 81-49-222-0354). The specialty here, as in many restaurants in Kawagoe, is unagi. A 2,400 yen offering includes four strips of delicate, savory eel on a bed of fluffy rice served in a lacquer box. Five types of pickles and a clear broth complete the meal.
If dinner beckons, try Hibiki-san’s Kurobuta Gekijo (17-4 Wakita-machi; 2nd floor, 81-49-226-8899). The restaurant’s specialty is juicy chunks of Berkshire pork and fresh vegetables grilled on skewers dipped in Hibiki-san’s spicy miso sauce, among others. The meal goes best with Kagamiyama sake or Coedo beer, both brewed locally.
The restaurant is also just a few minutes’ walk from the JR Kawagoe Station, where you can catch a train back to Tokyo and the big city.

Rico says the unagi sounds good, but he'll pass on monks picking their noses...