Fun little town to walk and explore. Wonderful people excited to tell you about history and show you the town’s history.

We were coming in on a red-eye from Vietnam, The week before we learned about Sawara from the Narita airport free tours and booked one for 9am. We booked a room at the Edo hostel (there is a really fancy "hotel" thing going on there and if you have the money, you should definitely do it) because we knew we wouldn't want to go into Tokyo after being up for 24 hours. Our flight was late and we missed the tour. But who cares! Sawara was lovely and a great first stop. While we were there on Monday and almost everything was closed, just walking the streets and buying beer from vending machines was more than enough for us. The sake brewers were still open. The two restaurants that were open were awesome and we enjoyed them both (Hiroshi Takayasu was for dinner) . Staying at the hostel was like a glamour sleepover. Tuesday morning, many more shops were open and we got to pick up some stuff before we left. There was a closed restaurant Casa something that looked amazing. From what we could tell from our reception from everyone, not many foreigners visit here, just the Japanese, so it has all of the amenities, but you really feel like you're some place unusual. Protip: Just because it is an old Edo style house, does not mean it's a museum, someone probably lives there.