The approach to Hikawa Shrine extends for more than two kilometers through Omiya — a zelkova-lined path that is one of the longest shrine approaches in Japan, and one of the few that remains in the center of a major city with its character intact. The shrine at the end of it is the highest-ranked in the old Musashi province, visited by the Edo shoguns and still a significant site. On the first and third Saturdays of each month, antique dealers set up along portions of the approach and grounds: Meiji-period tableware, Showa-era objects, woodblock prints, tea ceremony equipment, the accumulated material of several centuries of domestic life in the Kanto region. The combination of sacred space and commercial transaction is not contradictory in Japan; markets have been held at shrine approaches for as long as shrines have existed. Omiya is thirty minutes from central Tokyo by train, and the shrine approach provides an immediate change of pace from the urban environment around the station. The antique market adds a reason to come on a specific day rather than any day, and the possibility of finding something remarkable at a shrine approach in suburban Saitama is not smaller than anywhere else.