Last weekend, I visited one last sakura spot with a friend of mine before all the pink turn to green, just so we could take pictures and stuff. Because if a sakura petal falls in the middle of the forest and no one is around to take a photo of it, does it really happen? Ha.
We visited Kawagoe, a small town in Saitama that’s only about 1 hour away from Shinjuku. It is a nice old town with many old-style buildings, which I’ve talked about before in my previous visit to Kawagoe.
What I didn’t get to do the last time was to eat unagi (eels) which are meant to be popular in that area. So this time around, we started our trip with some eels in our belly.
Ichinoya is one of the more popular unagi restaurants around Kawagoe. As soon as we arrived, we realised how spacious the inside of this small old-looking restaurant was… and how many waiting seats were prepared… and every single one of them was taken. We put our name down and then waited for about 30 minutes or so.
Once our names were called, the waitress kindly brought us to our room. Yes, we had our own room!! It was a rather spacious room for the 2 of us. But I just loved the fact that everything looked so quintessentially Japanese.
We looked at the menu (we were given an English menu by the way, so yay, gaijin-friendy!) and decided on what to eat. Meanwhile, the waitress returned with some hot green tea, towels and chopsticks.
While we were waiting for the food, we closed the Japanese-style door to our room, so that we could take crazy pictures everywhere!
But when we heard footsteps, we moved back to our table and sat down like the real ladies we are… Food was served.
This was how mine looked like. It was chopped kobayashi unagi with rice and some leaves, and a nice “tea soup” to mix with the rice. It also came with soup, pickles, and fruits.
It was delicious! My friend ordered the normal unagi set in a rectangle lacquer box, and that was even more delicious as the unagi was a little more charred and had a wonderful aroma to it.
Once we were done with food and photos, we walked out of our room and checked out the other areas of the restaurant.
Ichinoya is a gorgeous place to have your unagi fix in a traditional Japanese restaurant. Of course, if you have a tight schedule, I’ll suggest arriving early before the lunch crowd.
We then walked towards Kitain temple.
As we walked closer to the temple area, we started seeing many colourful lanterns on the street. Pretty!
As we walked into the temple area, we started seeing many festival food vendors which got me excited, except that I was already quite full from our unagi meals.
The sakura trees were indeed past the full bloom time, however, there were still a number of pink trees with few green leaves here and there. Plus, with the lanterns hanging all over, it was still a beautiful sight!
Another cool thing that we wouldn’t be able to see if it wasn’t the end of the sakura season was the flower petals covering the grounds we were walking on!
We also found more festival food around the temple, and surprisingly everything was pretty quiet that day even though it was a Saturday afternoon.
We could see people doing hanami still, even though there weren’t that many. And plenty of families with little kids running around enjoying the nice day out.
We didn’t buy much festival food because we were really full, however, we did get an ame ringo each. Yup, sweet candied apples – my favourite kind of festival food (as featured in many other posts on my blog haha).
You could easily spend more time walking around Kitain, as there are plenty of things to see. I visited Kitain during autumn few years ago, and it was gorgeous too!
We walked out of the temple and took the Ko-edo Loop Bus to bring us to Hikawa Shrine, for our next cherry blossom viewing destination.
Once we arrived, we actually walked around the back of the shrine to find THIS! *love*
Yes, the Shingashi river filled with cherry blossom petals that it looked like a bed of pink fluffy goodness!! Ah, so beautiful! Yet another part of spring that I totally love about Japan.
Apart from one hanami party by the side of the street, two tourists wearing kimono, and a few enthusiastic photographers, the river was pretty empty! So we felt like we’ve found ourselves the perfect spot for picture-taking. I mean, look!
I love how quiet and peaceful this area was. I could imagine how beautiful it would’ve been at full bloom…
So so so beautiful! We took plenty of photos of each other (because that’s what girls do, right?!) around the river area.
Apart from the falling sakura petals, there was also a field of yellow flowers on the other side of the road. Too pretty!
From Shingashi River, we then walked to Kawagoe’s famous old town, passing some cute little houses and shops along the way…
We stopped by at a nearby Family Mart to recharge, and I got myself this super yummy ゆずレモンサイダー (yuzu lemon cider). Refreshing and cooling, with that awesome sour & bitter yuzu taste.
We reached the old town to find many people still wandering around. But then again, the old town is probably the only part of Kawagoe that would be filled with tourists. Even then, it wasn’t crazy busy. Maybe because it was already close to 5, and some shops were doing their final sales before closing time…
I have plenty of photos of Kawagoe’s old town from my first visit, so do check them out!
We saw another temple on the way back, with plenty of lanterns around the place… We didn’t stop by for too long, as there didn’t seem to be any festival food (yeah, it’s all about that! :p).
And with that, we made our way back to Hon-Kawagoe Station gleefully, having plenty of pretty pictures, seeing gorgeous cherry blossom petals flying and eating yummy food. What an awesome day trip!
On a separate note, I saw this vending machine on the side of the street featuring Kamisama Hajimemashita anime. I think I watched an episode or two of that, maybe I should continue…
The sakura season in Tokyo is now over, for the most part. There are probably some late-blooming sakura that you can find in Shinjuku Gyoen or other parks. So this probably marks the end of my cherry blossom adventure. It has been a fun one, and I’m hoping that next year I’ll get to go to different places outside Tokyo to enjoy the sakura.
I recommend Kawagoe as a perfect day trip from Tokyo, due to its location and uniqueness. Plus, when the sakura blooms, the Shingashi River really is quite pretty… And not as crowded as Nakameguro.