Hunt for 10-yen candy with a fistful of coins
A dagashiya is an old-fashioned candy shop where many sweets cost only 10 or 20 yen, and generations of Japanese children have stood at the shelves counting out their coins. Look for kinako-bo, chewy sticks of roasted soybean-flour candy, where a marked stick wins you another one for free. Bring small coins, since shops like these usually take cash only.
This tiny candy stall has stood in the grounds of Kishimojin-do, a temple hall in Tokyo's Zoshigaya, since 1781, and is often called the oldest dagashiya in Japan. Boxes and jars of kinako-bo, Morocco Yogurt (a tiny tub of tangy candy eaten with a little wooden spoon) and whistle ramune, ring-shaped candies you can blow to make a sound, crowd the counter. It is a few minutes' walk from Zoshigaya Station, and opening days vary, so check before you go.
In this old lane, candy is still sold loose from baskets and glass jars, so you can buy just one or two pieces and keep walking. Look for fugashi, light sticks of baked wheat gluten coated in brown sugar, some of them nearly a meter long. The lane is about a 15-minute walk from Hon-Kawagoe Station, or a short ride on the loop bus that circles the old town.
A warehouse-sized candy shop in the countryside of Setouchi, Okayama, holding around 5,000 kinds of sweets and toys. The shelves are kept low, at a child's eye level, with whole corners for 10-yen candy and for snacks from decades past. It is far from the big cities: about 20 minutes by bus from JR Oku Station, or easier to reach by car.