Koedo

I didn't post about Tetsu and my Saturday trip to a refurbished historical Japanese town a couple of prefectures over.  We visited Kawagoe's Koedo, (it means small Edo, from the Edo period of Japanese history).  The town is a real tourist attraction and it was fun to walk down the street and see the trinkets being sold and sample the wares.  Visiting these places we seem to end up doing more eating than anything else.

 

 This is the landmark of the town, a wooden bell tower I think used as a lookout tower for fire alerts.

This is definitely a tourist attraction!  Nowadays jinrikshas are NOT used as modes of transportation.  But it looked like it would be fun to wheel around the town and have a personal tour guide letting you know what you were seeing.  With all the people and cars though it took some skill on the "driver's" part.

Here's what I mean about the people. We could hardly get into a shop to see what they were selling!  (Actually I took that picture to show the old buildings...  The thick windows and tiled roofs...  again protection against fires.)

This man has been featured on TV and he is a traditional lollipop maker.  Yes!  Lollipops!  He has a hot iron plate in front of him and he keeps his candy soft and pliable there and then will make animals and characters on request right in front of you.  With his scissors and paint brush he spends just a couple of minutes and Ta-da! a lollipop that is too cute to eat!  He was doing a good business this day though!

And here is Tetsu buying some sweet potato and sweet bean paste buns from an outdoor booth.  Of course people could go inside the shop and buy sweets in boxes but these little booths are very convenient for buying one or two sweets at a time and the hot steam drifting from below the wooden box sends a tantalizing aroma all the way up and down the street!