This bell is a symbol of Kawagoe that has announced the time to the residents of the castle town for nearly 400 years. At roughly 16m tall, it is about the same height as the Daibutsu (the great Budda statue) in Nara. The current bell is the fourth generation and sounds four times a day: at 6:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. The sound of this bell was selected in 1996 by the Environment Agency (now the Ministry of the Environment) as one of the Top 100 Soundscapes of Japan.
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