The Rest of Kawagoe

          

Kawagoe Art Museum And Kawagoe City Museum

The two museums are side by side and offer a joint ticket for both.

The art museum had an interesting hands-on exhibit with wooden dolls.

In the first room, there were puppet dolls hanging on the wall that people could play with to make sounds on the broken steel plate. It was pretty fun.

In the second room, the dolls were hanging in open cubes and arranged in various ways.

It was a fun exhibit. 

The City Museum displayed history of the area and had some English explanations for the exhibits.  Photography was allowed without flash, but most of the museum was very dark.

Outside in a little garden is a musical water thing. You pour water over the rock and it drips down making a tinkling music sound.

There were only a few people in the museums.  I think most of the tourists were in the shopping areas of Kawagoe.

Miyoshino-Jinja Shrine

 This shrine wasn't originally on my list of things to see, but as I was leaving the Castle/Palace area, the bright red called for me to see it closer, so I walked over. It is a well maintained shinto shrine in the middle of a large park area. There is something very nice to be in a calm, quiet place during such turbulent times.

Kumano Jinja Shrine - Kawagoe

After visiting Umi-Shibaura Station, I continued on the train to Kawagoe, Saitama. After getting off the train and consulting with the tourist information counter, I walked down a shopping street (not stopping because it was a little crowded and I wanted to avoid getting too close to anyone).  

My first stop was Kumano Jinja Shrine. It was a gorgeous warm fall day.

On both sides of the main entrance walkway are paths with stones sticking up. You are supposed to walk across them without shoes.  I didn't do it here, but have at other places. It's uncomfortable and I've forgotten the reason for doing it.

I've also done this before, going through the hoop one way and another, then straight ahead to the main shrine building. I wrote about it at another shrine visit here.

It's a fairly large shrine, with many interesting things to look at.

I'll have more to say about Kawagoe soon.