Once upon a time, if you stood in the Saiwai-cho area of Kawagoe in western Saitama Prefecture, you would have seen all around you people in kimono moving between rows of old merchants' houses with upswept, tiled roofs, kura warehouses with double-shuttered windows, and alleys twisting between black-painted mortared walls.
Then, if you looked up, for centuries you would have seen the Toki no Kane clock tower thrusting skyward, with no ugly lattice-work of wires strung between utility poles to detract from its grandeur.
And now . . .? Well, the amazing thing is that nowadays you can still see much the same scenes, almost unchanged. Certainly the area around Ichiban-gai in Saiwai-cho has retained its traditional aspect -- which is why it is known as Ko-Edo (mini-Edo), and why around 4 million visitors a year visit for a taste of how their ancestors lived.