Kanto region · the offbeat side of Saitama.
4 discoveries
A castle town an hour from Tokyo that still looks like the Edo period: a street of black-walled clay merchant warehouses crowned by a wooden bell tower that has rung the hours for centuries.
A pole-steered raft trip down the Arakawa River past Iwadatami — a government-designated 'cultural landscape' of flat, layered rock shelves — alternating calm float-and-swim stretches with sudden rapids, about two hours from Tokyo.
A quiet Saitama neighborhood that is the spiritual home of bonsai — a cluster of working nurseries and a dedicated museum where centuries-old miniature trees are tended like living heirlooms.
A cathedral of trains in Saitama: real locomotives from steam to shinkansen parked in a vast hall, a turntable that spins a steam engine to a whistle, and driving simulators for would-be conductors.
.jpg/960px-Omiya_Railway_Museum_%E5%A4%A7%E5%AE%AE%E9%90%B5%E9%81%93%E5%8D%9A%E7%89%A9%E9%A4%A8_-_panoramio_(4).jpg)