Satte, Saitama

Two old highways once met at this junction — the Nikko Onari-kaido and the Nikko Kaido — and the town that grew up at their crossing still carries the proportions of a post town. Satte sits on the flat alluvial plain of the Kanto lowlands, close to the Tone River, barely above sea level, the land given over to rice paddies and scattered hamlets. National Route 4 runs straight through north to south now, and the Tobu Nikko Line stops here, but the pace of the place has little to do with either.

At Seifu-ji, the Tokugawa shoguns paused on their way to Nikko Tosho-gu, and the temple still stands in that context. Josai-ji holds a burial mound associated with Taira no Masakado, designated a local cultural heritage site. The Kishimoto family residence, a registered tangible cultural property, was quietly converted into a café in 2011 — a practical adaptation that suits the building's domestic scale. Along the Gongen-do embankment, rows of cherry trees line what is locally called the sakura-dote, a levee path above the paddy fields. Gyoko-ko, an adjusting reservoir nearby, was once used for canoe competitions and is now frequented by anglers.

Suburban chain stores have moved in along the arterial roads, and the population is thinning. The old post-town grid and the newer sprawl coexist without quite resolving into each other — which is, in its way, an honest portrait of this corner of eastern Saitama.