Ishida Lion Dance

Kawagoe is known as little Edo (Edo being Tokyo’s old name) because it was a castle town closely associated with the Tokugawa shoguns in the Edo period and it still has some of its old buildings. Kawagoe is as little as a 30-minute train ride from Ikebukuro (on the Tobu Tojo line) and worth a trip at any time but this weekend you can combine it with watching a traditional lion dance accompanied by musicians on floats. The dance is part of what Kawagoe’s tourist association calls its Spring Festival a sequence of cultural activities that happen from April to May. Sadly however, the people in charge of tourism don’t actually give a time or location for the dance, just a phone number, so our advice is to check in the tourist information office in the station or call them. Ishida, incidentally, is a district to the north of Kawagoe but whether the dance takes place there or is just from there, the information office will be able to tell you. There is plenty to see in Kawagoe and you can read more about that in English here.

(C.A.Miles)