Koshigaya Laketown

Out in the sticks of Saitama, Japan's Aeon group has managed to build what they are calling the largest shopping center in Japan. It's in an area of Saitama called Koshigaya Laketown.

This is a picture of before the shopping center was built, and as you can see in the area. . .no lakes. I think they just made that name up. There is a lake now, which was probably built to give credibility to the name.


You can get to Koshigaya Laketown by riding the Musashino line train. It's a bit of the way out from Tokyo, but if you have a free day I would recommend it. There are tons of shops including my favorite, Krispy Kreme haha.


Japan has been making more and more Krispy Kreme shops, so I am able to grab some yummy "Hot and Now" whenevers. There is also one of the few Burger Kings in Japan at Laketown. When I'm craving that chicken sandwich or Whopper, no probs.

I hardly eat fast food hamburgers anymore because for one thing, they are crazy expensive compared to Hawaii/stateside, and for another they have takoyaki in Japan. Takoyaki is octopus balls, not that kind of octopus balls, but balls of batter with octopus inside. There are just so many other things to eat in Japan other than cardboard burgers.

There are two sections to the shopping mall: kaze=wind and mori=forest. Not sure of the reasoning behind those because being that there wasn't any lakes near the mall before the man made one, there are no forests near the mall either.

walking from one side to the other will take you a good 20-30 minutes. That plus the 3-stories will give you a lot of stores to look at on a rainy/freezing cold/super hot day. This is probably where I will be in two months when the Japanese Summer is upon me like a fly on doodoo. Summer is crazy hot here. There's even a Hawaii store in there. It's more of like a dumbed down ABC store though.



The two sections of the mall are so far apart that they have this tunnel that connects the two, and in the tunnel are moving sidewalks. If anyone doesn't need moving sidewalks in a mall, it's Japan. There are virtually no fat people here. Just keep walking everyone.



There are some pieces of nature embedded deep in the mall like this rock.


and this fish pond.

Not exactly like the koi in Alamoana, but I'm not comparing.

There are a couple electronics stores in the mall as well as two pet stores, a kajillion restaurants, and a Toyota dealership. Yup, you can go shopping for t-shirts, and come out with a car. You can even get shiny cars that will for sure blind other drivers on bright Summer days.


All in all, a nice place to spend a rainy day, or blazing hot day.

Prepare to fight the crowds if you go on a weekend.