Kasukabe

Kasukabe is a city of over 200,000 people, in eastern Saitama prefecture. It is the setting of the manga cartoon stories Lucky Star and Crayon Shin-chan.

Train

Minami-Sakurai Station (南桜井駅), in the heart of town, is served by the Tobu Noda line (for Tokyo, connect to JR at Ōmiya) and the Tobu Isesaki line (connect to JR at Shin-Koshigaya).

Car

From the Tohoku Expressway's Iwatsuki Interchange, take Highway 16 towards Noda for about 17 km (30 minutes). From the Jouban Expressway's Kashiwa Interchange, take Highway 16 towards Noda for about 20 km (40 minutes).

The city's Haru Bus serves three routes, on Monday through Saturday, for a few hundred yen per ride. Given that, you might find a taxi (about 1000 yen across town) to be faster and more convenient, though more expensive.

• Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel

  phone: +81 48-746-0748
  address: 春日部市上金崎720
  This massive underground flood-control system, also known as G-CANs, was finished in 2009 at the cost of hundreds of billions of yen (a few billion US dollars), with the aim of preventing the perennial floods which have plagued this part of the Kanto plain. The centrepiece is a huge underground tank with dozens of pillars. It has been called the "temple", and serves as a setting for TV commercials. A 90-minute group tour is offered each Tuesday-Friday, at 10AM, 1PM, and 3PM. It is free, but you must reserve (in Japanese) by phone or over the internet 1-28 days in advance. The tour is in Japanese, and someone in each party must be able to translate safety instructions for non-speakers. About 10 minutes of the tour is actually spent in the "temple". Tours are subject to cancellation if, say, the tanks are full of floodwater.