Bungotakada is a small town on the Kunisaki Peninsula in Oita Prefecture, Kyushu, about an hour by limited express from Kokura in Kitakyushu to Usa Station, then about 10 minutes by bus or taxi. Its old shopping street has kept the look and the trade of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the years of the Showa era when the street was at its busiest. Look over the toys at the old candy shops, then have lunch at a diner whose prices have not changed in decades.
A museum packed with about 60,000 toys and sweets once sold at dagashi-ya, the corner candy shops where children spent their pocket money. They fill an old farm warehouse from floor to ceiling, so it is easy to lose an hour here. A combined ticket also covers the museum of Showa-era rooms nearby.
A museum that recreates a family home and a school classroom from the 1950s and 1960s, so you can step inside everyday Japan of that time. You can also play shateki, a fairground shooting game with cork guns, and smart ball, a kind of tabletop pinball.
A plain local diner that has not changed its prices since 1980. Order chanpon, a noodle soup piled with stir-fried pork, seafood and vegetables, or yakimeshi, Japanese-style fried rice. It is closed on Tuesdays and shuts once the day's food runs out, so come at lunchtime rather than late.
A sweets shop in a converted old house, where you sit down for grilled mochi, grilled dango (rice dumplings on a skewer) or zenzai, a warm, sweet red bean soup. It is closed on Tuesdays.
A coffee shop serving the school lunches Japanese children ate in the Showa era, such as whale meat fried in a soy and ginger coating and agepan, sugar-coated fried bread. Whale was a cheap, everyday meat back then, which is why it is on the menu. Agepan can be taken away to eat as you walk.