The Tokyo Affair 2013 - Kawagoe aka Little Edo (Image Intensive!)

On my trip this April, we decided to pop by Kawagoe aka Little Edo. Kawagoe is a heritage site of sorts and the main streets have retained the old clay-walled warehouse style buildings (Kurazukuri). So what you get is a little town straight from the Edo period (1603 - 1867). It's a good place for a day trip but I think I need to go back next time 'cos we got quite distracted and ended up wandering around quite randomly (>_<)

From Ikebukuro, we took the Tobu line to Kawagoeshi 川越市 station. From there, there's a little map near the Lawson (right outside the station) that shows how to get there. Easy peasy!

The red arrows indicate our route from Kawagoe-shi station; the street upwards from Naka-cho is the main street!

After turning into the street, there're a few small-ish shrines along the way to pop into~

Got a lucky lot in the shape of a fan which is also a keychain! Yayy~~~

The next shrine we passed was residence to a Fertility/Childbirth Goddess I think?

 Nice little temple with a little café on the grounds where the older folks were chilling out~ ^__^

Hitting the main street!

Ok from here on it's gonna be a flow of streetshots for awhile k? =)

 

Busy busy~



OMG the smell was omg so good~~~

A Kawagoe specialty - Sweet potato with red bean! Loved it!

And then we hit the bell tower!



Ye olde bell tower =P



Just a few minutes from the bell tower is the kimono rental shop, Coedo Vivian! We were really psyched for that because the old town had such good photo opportunities! I regret that in my excitement I completely forgot to take a photo of the place but it's the only little shop just by the bell tower with a yukata (summer cotton kimono) displayed outside. You can check them out at THIS website~

Loads of kimono and yukatas and obis and hair accessories to choose from @_@ Being abit slow, I didn't realize that they had bags for us and ended up defaulting to a black kimono to match my black bag T__T I like black too but they had so many kimonos in pretty colours~~

The bags & hair accessories selection, above is a tiny portion of the obis available

But anyway, tadah!! And from this shot you can gauge where the shop is 'cos it was taken right out front~

With some of my girlfriends.. I kinda look like their mum >__<

We had the basic plan, which is they dress you and do your hair then you get to walk around the town and take photos on your own, just come back by closing time! And it was so cheap too! About 2,700 yen or something like that~

So of course that just sparked off a whole stream of camwhoring..

Hijacking an old bicycle =P



In one of alleys, everyone noticed this little white cat perched on the wall and just inside was a little room and porch where you could have a free cuppa tea and just take in the garden and the cats lounging around..

Yes they're umm..bonding.

  

At one of the many little shrines littering the town...you can see the other side of my hairdo here =) It was very simple, I suppose more befitting my slightly more *ahem* mature kimono =P



Trying to look like I'm the mama-san and failing badly =P

The super nice staff from Coedo Vivian~

One last shot before I go back to my street clothes

Love these streets...

I hope to go back and do the kimono thing again next time~ I really want to try the girly coloured ones! *squishes face*

You can get more info about Kawagoe on it's official website here~ ^___^