Kawagoe and Sweet Potatoes

Kawagoe and Sweet Potatoes

I went to Kawagoe with my badminton friend Miho, where we met her friend Yoshi san, who was our tour guide for the day. First of all we went to pick sweet potatoes. Kawagoe is apparently famous for them. Between the 3 of us we had a 2 metre long ridge to dig in. I am still eating sweet potato now, almost a fortnight later! Afterwards we went to the Yoshimi Hyakuana, which was a hillside of lots of caves. These caves are famous for being the largest group of ancient tombs in Japan and for a special variety of moss. Personally I thought the moss looked no different from normal moss!

After a lunch of udon noodles, we went back to Kawagoe to the Kita-in temple. I'd been here before, but had not been inside. It took us a long time to find a car parking space because of the large amounts of people in Kawagoe for the festival. Eventually we did, so we could then walk through Kawagoe through masses of stalls selling different foods. Every so often there was a stage, on which musicians played music, accompanied by a masked dancer. The music consists of a constant unusual drum beat, over which a random melody is played. Each stage had a different rhythm.
In the evening dashi started to be pulled through the streets. These are large floats, which also have musicians and masked characters characters on them. They are lit up with lanterns. Whenever 2 dashi passed each other the street was blocked completely. I don't think I've ever been so squashed. Despite this I really enjoyed my day in Kawagoe, thank you Yoshi san and Miho.