Kawasaki Daishi

Just across the river from Tokyo, Kawasaki Daishi is one of the busiest, most cheerful temples in the Kanto region — a working place of worship wrapped in the smell of incense and the sound of candy being chopped.

Why It’s Interesting

The temple (formally Heiken-ji) pairs serious devotion with a festival-day buzz: a soaring five-story pagoda, a great bronze incense burner whose smoke worshippers waft over themselves for health, and an approach street where shops sell tonkachi-ame, herbal candy cut to a rhythmic, almost musical clatter. At New Year it hosts one of the largest first-temple-visit (hatsumode) crowds in Japan — millions of people in a few days.

Best Time to Visit

Year-round. New Year is electric but jammed; an ordinary weekday gives you the incense and pagoda in relative peace.

Getting There

It’s a short walk from Kawasaki-Daishi Station on the little Keikyu Daishi Line — an easy, very local detour right at the start of the road north.