Kawasaki

Kawasaki (??) is a city in Kanto, Japan, sandwiched between Tokyo and Yokohama.

Get in

By plane

To reach Kawasaki from Narita Airport, take the JR Narita Express to Tokyo or Shinagawa and transfer to the Tokaido Line (90 minutes, ¥3280, no charge with Japan Rail Pass).

From Haneda Airport, you can take the Keikyu Line to the Keikyu-Kawasaki station in as little as 11 minutes (up to 20 minutes with a connection) at a cost of ¥400.

By train

JR Kawasaki station is on the Tokaido Main Line from Tokyo. Trains on both the Tokaido Line and the Keihin-Tohoku Line stop here.

The immediately adjacent Keikyu-Kawasaki station is also accessible more cheaply on the private Keikyu line from Shinagawa.

Get around

The surprisingly rustic Kawasaki Daishi Line (?????) putters through people's backyards, and is useful for the three-stop trip from Keikyu Kawasaki to Kawasaki Daishi. The total fare from Shinagawa is only about ¥300.

See

Kawasaki is largely an industrial area and residential suburb — as typical in Japan, not much distinction between the two is made. But there's one very large temple and one very offbeat shrine to draw in the occasional curious tourist.

• Kawasaki Daishi (????), officially Heikenji (???). => (in Japanese). A large temple dedicated to famed monk and scholar Kobo Daishi (see Mt. Koya). Featuring a 8-sided, 5-storied pagoda and more large temple buildings than you can shake a stick at, Kawasaki Daishi is a textbook example of a Japanese temple and remarkable primarily for the fact that on a weekday you can pretty much have the place to yourself. Easily reached on foot from Kawasaki Daishi station, a 10-minute stroll through a shopping arcade.
• Wakamiya Hachiman-g? Shrine (?????). A quiet Shinto shrine that would be indistinguishable from your average neighborhood shrine if not for one thing: this happens to be one of Japan's few remaining fertility shrines, and the deity venerated here assumes the form of a meter-long iron phallus, known as Kanamara-sama (????, lit. "Iron Big Penis Lord"). There are a number of stories behind this, and while the most entertaining one is certainly the official legend (see box), the more likely explanation seems that prostitutes from nearby brothels — still a large industry in Kawasaki — used to pray here for protection. To get to the shrine, take the only exit from Kawasaki Daishi station and turn right, then just walk along the curving road for a block or two and you'll spot the shrine on your right. Definitely best visited during festival time (see Do).
• In the shrine building you can also find a small sex museum, showcasing mostly Japanese erotic art. A few notable exhibits include a version of the Three Monkeys with two extra monkeys and life-sized brass model of a vagina; if you buy an amulet from the shop (see Buy), you're supposed to rub it against this. Opening hours are erratic, but the shrine shop attendant will usually be happy to open it up on request. Entry is free, but donations are accepted.
• Nihon Minka-En (?????), or Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum =>. The large grounds display over twenty traditional Japanese houses, dating from the late 17th to early 20th century and transplanted from around the country. Rarely crowded, and costing only ¥500 admission, the museum is a 12 min. walk from Mukogaoka-yuen station on the Odakyu Line from Shinjuku, or 20 min. from Noborito on the JR Nanbu Line.

Do

• Kawasaki's best-known event is the Kanamara Matsuri (?????), also known as the Iron Penis Festival, held yearly in early April — check with the Tokyo TIC for exact dates. Penis-laden temple floats (o-mikoshi) are paraded down the streets of Kawasaki and everybody gets sloshed. The festival has been to some extent hijacked by foreign tourists and Tokyo's transvestite ("new half") community, who often make up half the audience, but as you can imagine the people running the show aren't terribly uptight and nobody seems to mind.

Buy

Wakamiya Hachiman has a wonderful selection of amulets promising fertility, sexual prowess and protection from disease. Prices ¥500-1000, and some of the revenue goes to HIV/AIDS research.

In festival time, a little market selling penis-shaped candies and other sexual paraphernalia pops up on the shrine grounds.

Eat

Long thought of as a working-class, blue collar, industrial city with little to offer in terms of the sophistication of Tokyo or the internationalized flair of Yokohama, central Kawasaki has recently (last thirty years or so) undergone a revitalization and modernization around the station area that often leaves some Japanese surprised at the changes that have taken place. The area around the station is quite clean and modern, very safe and convenient and offers good value in terms of eating establishments. You will not find much in the way of notable or must-eat culinary restaurants but you will find very competent and reasonable dining particularly on the east side of the station and in the Azalea Underground Arcade connected to the east exit of the station. The other place to check out is the restaurant floor at the top of the Seibu Department Store building next to the Nikko Hotel which is a few minutes walking from the east exit of JR Kawasaki station.

Sleep

There is no compelling reason to stay overnight and most visitors daytrip from Tokyo, but if you are splitting time between Tokyo and Yokohama and your destinations are on the JR Tokaido Line or the Keihin Kyuko Line and the hotels in Shinagawa are all sold out, Kawasaki might be a good alternative as there are many inexpensive business hotels in the Kawasaki area.

Mid-range

• Kawasaki Mets Hotel, connected to JR Kawasaki Station, =>. You will be hard-pressed to find a hotel that is closer to a station on the Tokaido Line between Tokyo and Yokohama stations. Free broadband internet and breakfast (both Western and Japanese style available).

Splurge

• Kawasaki Nikko Hotel, right next to JR/Keikyu Kawasaki Stations, =>. Part of the prestigious Nikko chain of hotels. This means, be prepared to pay: At last check on the hotel's website, rooms started at around ¥15000 for singles and ¥20000 for doubles.External links==
• Kawasaki City

This text of this article is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0. It has been slightly modified to fit the general design of this website. The authors of this document are Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel, Evan Prodromou, Jose Ramos, Mitch Sako, Paul N. Richter, Richard Petersen and the following WikiTravel users: Jpatokal. The original version of this article can be seen at http://wikitravel.org/en/Kawasaki.