Solo Trip to Japan|| Solo Tri to Tokyo|| Holiday Tokyo|| TOkyo SIghtseeing|| Day visit to Kasukabe from Tokyo|| Visit to Sinchan’s Town|| A Day in Kasukabe: Discovering Sinchan’s Cartoon Land|| Exploring Kasukabe: A Sinchan Fan’s Dream Trip
One of the prime places in my bucket list has been to go to SInchan’s town ‘someday’.. you know who Sinchan is, right? If no then google, watch Hungama channel if you are from India.. or else find him.. he is a painfully notorious but so so cuuttee cartoon character.. to make it clearer, Sinchan is an adult cartoon, however it is shown in India with lots of cuts and edits.. and that’s why this cartoon has a huge popularity in my country (not sure why they don’t consider his ill mannerisms!), not that I support it for young kids, but I am an adult bacha so I can watch it!! I can be a fan!! though people can roll and squeeze their eyes on me.. still I can be a fan!!
So I know you had a question in mind as to why/ how Sinchan?? I have answered to it.. now I know you will challenge me with.. is Sinchan bigger than Harry Potter for you?? Well.. don’t you Dare ask me this.. I Ioovvee Harry Potter, grew up reading the books, went through the craze of book release days, movie release, crushing on Daniel Radclif, Tom Felton, Robert Pattinson and what not!! I am from ‘that’ era.. so Do Not Aks me this question.. have been a Sinchan fan later.. I have.. but I love them all.. I even went to Disneyland in Tokyo.. so do I forget Winnie the Pooh, Mickey and Minnie? Its all there.. if you are a 80s kid.. you know what am I trying to say.. all of them matter to us.. let me speak like a Grandma.. those old days were soo beautiful! Todays’ kids won’t watch this.. so you have your answer… now let’s get to business..
So, my first day at Tokyo was to visit Kasukabe and Kawagoe.. Kawagoe is a tourist village near Tokyo.. I wanted to do them both in one day.. will give you all my plans gradually..
I actually started quite late in the morning, as there was a lot of lethargy from the long journey a day before.. so I started at about 11 in the morning and of course the routine got little here and there..
Going there: I took the subway. To go to kasukabe, I took a train from Sinjuku. I had to change at Omia. The entire journey took little more than 1 hour.
About Kasukabe:
Though Kasukabe is SInchan’s living town, I mean as per the cartoon.. you actually don’t get to see the house or the kasukabe kindergarten school.. you get to see many buildings/ houses resembling to the cartoon which is obvious. But there are many fun facts.
- As soon as you get down at Kasukabe station, you hear SInchan theme music playing inside the station.. and you know you are at ‘The Place’ you wanted to come to.
- If you have observed, you will find, a late morning or afternoon scene starts with a raven calling all across the town, you do get to hear that in Kasukabe you know!! and it feels like right now SInchan going to coming running from any of the corner of the streets.
- In Kasukabe there is a Mall called Lala Garden, which is very close to the station. The top floor is dedicated to a gaming zone for Sinchan related games (I didn’t spend money here but of course you can and Japanese people love games) and a shopping counter. Where you can buy lot of souvenirs, prices are quite high here but I know you can’t help. There are stationaries like pen, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, stickers etc. there are cups, plates, magnets, bags, t-shirts and what not.. I also bought a box of Chocobi.. couldn’t resist buying that. And that’s it..
- So you can end your tour here, within 1 hour you are done.. or there is a Kasukabe city history museum.. so it must be the local authority, who has designed this interesting tour of the town. You go to the museum, which is about 1 km from the Lala garden Mall.. once inside you see a small corner dedicated to SInchan and family and at the entrance there is a cute family statue. At the entrance of the museum, you will find a small map with pictures of Sinchan. There are place to put stamps on them. So basically there are 5-7 places all across the city. You visit to those places, see a small glimpse of Sinchan and get your stamp on the map. It’s interesting but then you will need an entire day for it. I only got one stamp at the museum and headed back to the station to take my next tarin to Kawagoe.
Entrance: no entrance is required here.
Stay: there are hotels in kasukabe but I don’t think you need to stay here if you have a long Japan trip. A day visit is more than enough.
So in a nutshell if you start early, say if you reach Kasukabe by 10 in the morning and only want to visit lalagarden Mall, then 1 hour here will be enough. You may stop for some coffee or meal then go for your next destination.
My next stop was Kawagoe. As soon as I stepped out of the station I loved the place. My target was to visit Kashiya Yokocho market, known as the Candy market. From the station it’s a 30 minutes walk. But it’s a great great walk. There are shops, restaurants lined up all across hence you can’t get bored or tired. However after one point as I was following my map and walking, I found the streets to be empty, all shops closed and forlorn yet I loved walking in that dark quietude. When my map was showing me just 2 minutes away from my destination, I realised I was at my destination but at a wrong time. Kawagoe closed by 5 in the evening, and I was there at 7:30 pm. Still, I couldn’t complain.
Even deserted, the streets were carrying their beauty, though mostly dark I could still realise that, ‘ if I don’t see this place during their opening hours, I will miss a huge charm from my trip’.. whether I was right or wrong I will tell you in my next post dedicated to Kawagoe.. but yes I planned another visit here from my schedule and made it happen. But my first 15 minutes’ walk from kawagoe station or the entire area around the station is very alive in the evening.. there’s food, there’s shopping, there’s gaming zone.. there’s people, a lot of them, there’s lights, so glimmering.. I loved Kawagoe.. & of course I have so much more to share
TurtleGotWings 