Remains of good old days

Kawagoe is famous for its Kura. Kura is a storehouse for food, and those in Kawagoe were fireproof somehow. In Edo era, people found it out when they saw them survived after fires. So people at kawagoe built a lot of them. I was surprised to see them remained in such a good condition. I felt as if I time traveled to edo period when I walked the main street!

We went to a Kurazukuri museum, which was pretty good! My friend remembered that I was interested in the Japanese traditional floats which are shown in a festival, and he took me this museum in which we could see the real floats, a documentary film about festival, and a show of dance in a special costume and lively music with traditional instruments.

 The entrance fee was about 2.5USD per person and I thought it was much worth it(It seemed it was two dollars more expensive before)!! There were two floats with three flats displayed which were much higher than those I've seen at another museum in Tochigi- ken last year(see my journal before. I think I wrote about it). The film was quite interesting because I've never seen such a traditional festival before. I didn't even know them before last year. This my friend grew up with it and play flute at festival every year. It sounds fun! It was not fair that I did not know them for more than 20 years! The show was good as well. I was interested in the Shishimai dance, lion dance. I thought the moving way was very cute contrary to its scary face. Well, I enjoyed everything in this museum!

And we headed to bite something sweets at the placed called Kashiyayokocho. There are a small lane of tiny shops which sell old- time Japanese sweets. We had an Satsumaimo icecream(sweet potato flavored) at a little shop in which the decoration were just like old days! I felt kind of nostalgic even though I did not live at the time(maybe my parents would remember their childfood when they were there). Inside was filled with retro stuffs, for example, there displayed a picture- card show, retro posters, a mold of taiyaki, a fish- shaped pancake stuffed with bean jam, which is very common sweets here. The table and chairs we sat on were wooden and very nice too.

We had rice dumpling and small steaming bans too. For these years I went back to the old Japanese things like architectures, gardens, paintings... and now it seems I got to be fond of traditional sweets too which I never liked before(I hated beans sweets and dumplings in some reason. Now I know how tasty they are!).   

After filling stomachache, we went to cultivate ourselves to see temples, shrines, and a remain of castel. I liked Kitain Temple which is very japanese traditional architecture I thought. It is simple and has a wide light green roof. In the teritory of the temple, there was a series of statues which has different face each other. According to a brochure, there were 538 of them and you could find the one statue which look like exactly you! My friend excited about it but for me it was kind a scary... At any rate, the gate was closed and we could not come in, so we couldn't find other half of ourselves.

Kawagoe was cool place! I am thinking to come back again to see summer festival! The streets will be lighten up by many lanterns hung from Kuras. Should be pretty! And there is fireworks too! How exciting!