Koedo-Kawago
Saitama’s Charmin Merchant Distr Jessica Craven (Saitama)
Kurazukuri w
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sakusa in Tokyo is hailed as one of the best places to visit if you want to get a taste of what life was like in the old capital of Edo. While this Tokyo district has its charms, there’s another city with a place more off the beaten path that I think provides a much more authentic impression of old Japan: KoedoKawagoe in Saitama. Kawagoe became known as Koedo, or “Little Edo,” due to its importance as a northern defense point of Edo and as a prosperous merchant district where workers collected and shipped goods coming in from across Japan to the
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capital. (1) The exchange between the two cities was not limited to the goods distributed by Kawagoe— the culture and architecture of Edo were also adopted by the wealthy citizens of the merchant city, making it a true cosmopolitan center. However, while many of the area’s Edo-style buildings still remain, the city has evolved throughout the decades through careful planning and preservation. Because of those efforts, today in Koedo-Kawagoe, you can walk through centuries’ worth of different architectural styles in just a few minutes. The Koedo-Kawagoe historical
district is like a living arch museum—a place where imbibe the atmospheres eras in one small locality.
Edo Period Sights (160
The Edo period architect associated with the city’s nickname is the fire retar warehouses known as ku These warehouses store plentiful supplies that flo and out of Kawagoe. The merchants spared no exp constructing them, and t the historical district of K Kawagoe much of its orn charm. Each warehouse
