Koedo's Pedestrian - Car Battle
先週は家族でドライブで埼玉へ行きました。亀清旅館にお泊りになるお客様で川越からの方は何故か多いです。「遊びにおいで」と皆が言います。どんな魅力があるだろうと気になっていました。そして、新聞で日本原風景街並みTop10で川越の小江戸が出ていました。さっそく、行ってみました。
第一印象は街並み及びお店の皆の笑顔は良かったけど、本通りの観光歩行者と車のバットルは激しかった事。歩行者天国にしなさい！って感じ。
実は、私の夢はこの戸倉上山田温泉が歩行者天国になる事。ダンプカーが本通りを通る限りで、「温泉街」と言うイメージは難しいと思います。
そう思いながら、川越の小江戸の散策を楽しみました。
Last week, our family went for a drive to Saitama Prefecture. A noticeable percentage of our guests here at Kamesei Ryokan seem to be from Kawagoe City. They invariably say we should take a trip to their town some day. So I was curious about what exactly is Kawagoe's attraction. Then I saw in the paper that the city's "Koedo" (Little Edo -- the historical name for Tokyo) district was picked as one of Japan's Top 10 Historical Street Scenes. So, off we went to check it out.
And our first impression? The 'kurazukuri' storehouse style architecture was cool, and the friendliness of the shopkeepers was welcoming, but the battle going on between the tourist-pedestrians and the cars & busses on the main street was crazy. If there's ever a street that needed to be made Pedestrian-only, it is here!
Actually, that is one of my dreams here for our onsen town Togura Kamiyamada -- make the town free of cars. As long as dump trucks are allowed to rumble down the main street, our town will never have a complete 'onsen town' feel.
Anyways, those were my thoughts as our family enjoyed walking around Kawagoe's Koedo.
川越の小江戸情報はここ。Click here for info on Koedo in Kawagoe.
