Dagashiya walker a guide and traveloge of a Dagashiya journey
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what is Dagashi? Dagashi is always a child’s favourite. The little snacks and candies of children’s affordable fantasy. Dagashi has its history back to Edo period. It was always a child-oriented product. Until now the Dagashi is still small snacks in a good range of variety. It is often a miniature of adult’s products. You can find coke like candies, cigaritte form chocolate, fake cash money chocolate and cholate tobacco pipe. It can be found in Dagashiya, the place specailly open for childrens, or nowaday in supermarkets and some nostalgic shops.
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what is Dagashiya? Dagashiya is a little place where you can buy mostly Dagashi. It is some grannies and grappas who open the Dagashiya. They are often the shopkeeper and shop owner as well. Dagashiya are often found in housing estates and some narrow streets within. Some of them are even located in a private house’s front. Since Dagashiya sells relatively cheap price of snacks in a relatively lower quality, some wealthy family do not allow their children go to Dagashiya. As now more and more supermarkets and stores sells Dagashi and a greater variety and quality of snacks in a relaxing environment, Dagashiya become less and less poplular and attractive as it was before. More and more Dagashiya closed due to the lack of children customer and the aging of the elderly shopkeeper and shopowners.
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Yoko University student. Friend of Sindy. Japanese lover. A girl who loves robots, toys and grandma. She loves to search products of robot, and any kind of stationaries. She kept lots of toys, stationaries and also film tickets from childhood. She likes to chat with Japanese to practice her Japanese level and also see the cultural difference between Hong Kong and other countries.
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Sindy Classmate of Yoko. Someone who always spends very carefully during travels and loves to observe every human activiteis everywhere. Get on the the road to take photos and wander around to look at Japanese local culture. Always dare to communicate with Japanese who knows limited English without hesitation.
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1st Dagashiya we arrived, we are both too exiciting.
Many trendy Dagashi were found
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This kind of plastic container allows children to pick and choose theie snacks, no individual packaging.
This little boy just bought a handsome amount from the bottle.
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Character chocolate biscut chip
Chocolate no. 8
Little candies in different flavour
YFO chocolate cake
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Tri colour dango candies
Paper-Scissors-Stone candies
Universe travel candies
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soda candy
BB bullet candies meat stick
soda candies
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10000 Yen chocolate
umai stick soda champenge bricks candies
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Preserved Octopas meat
Plum water with 2 plums
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Soda powder
BB bullet candies with toy flute
100 Yen dried noodle
We’ve been going to the Sakitama to find the Kashiya Yokocho. That is a place that combines many dagashiya together. But before we go there, we’ve found another dagashiya. This is a classic shop but mixed with some new products. At the very beginning, I think that the shopkeepers are cold, but when I chat with them, they suddenly turn into smiles. They are so nice that gave Sindy a cartoon card that is the one that she kept from childhood. The grandma said, because of the troublesome that Japan gave China, so I would give the cardboard to only Chinese. It is an amazing experience that like the Japanese say sorry to Chinese many years later.
I was very pleased to find that there are children who visit the Dagashiya with their family. Yes, Dagashiya is a child’s dream. This may not be anymore but it is, still, a place where contains three genearations of memories. Yoko and I really feel like crying when I recieve the card as a gift from the kind old lady from the shop. I can ask for no more but here I can find the human touch I always hoping to feel.
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This is how snacks and candies are displayed in traditional Dagashiya.
An old woman sits on her sitting room in her house, keeping her shop running as the same time.
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Most traditional Dagashiya also sells small toys
Since the shop will be closing within these month, they do not refill their stock anymore.
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Bottles of interesting candies.
A hook and bell in the middle of the room. This make the shop feels more traditional.
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There is a huge green wooden board hanging lots of interesting toys. This is Wonder cards which you can tell a fortune in an economical way.
A hook and bell in the middle of the room. This make the shop feels more traditional.
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wonder card which can tell fortune
wonder card which can tell fortune
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frog plumping toy
plastic bullets
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Preserved Konbu
ice cream cone candies
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tobacco pipe chocolate
medicine candies
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50 YEN chocolate
fruit basket candies
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dango candies
space ship chocolate pie
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ice cream cone cracker
jelly sticker
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chalk candies
cigarette chocolate
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Preserved Plum meat
Fired Porkchop
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Elephant biscut
Coke flavour candies
This time we went to Meguro to find a very old dagashiya. We followed our guidebooks but cannot found the shop. After asking people there, we found the shop finally. It is older than the one that we’ve visited before. This dagashiya is more classic. They sell the oldest version of snacks and it is very cheap. The interior of the shop is worth to see, it is traditional, small, and just everything put in a small partitions. But a bad news is when I asked the grandma, the shop is closing because she is old and there are not many children stay at the estate. Most of youngsters moved out and in this century, there are too many choices of high quality snacks; dagashiya is just being left behind. It is pity that a 45 years old shop has to close. I can just leave this as my memory.
We bought a total of 514 Japanses Yen of Dagashi there when we hear the bad news from the daughter of the old lady that the shop is going to close. Watching the old lady summing up the total amount for me would be one of my greatest memeory. Yoko talked to the old lady I was taking photos. I cannot help feeling very sad when we leave the shop. We have little chance to see this shop nor this old lady again the next time we visit Japan again.
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Let’s begin our route of trendy Dagashiya now...
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You have to pay to enter the Nama Town inside Sunshine City, Ikebukuro. You can find a nostalgic Dagashiya inside. “Dagashiya� is a place where you can really find many kinds of snacks and plenty of nostalgic products. The shop setting keep the traditional way of displaying Dagashi and we are dazzled by the colours and variety of Dagashi inside. 61
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You can find many new and trendy snacks in the shop. You might be amased by how many Dagashi you can consume here and the variety of other snacks and products is going to satisfy your wants. The price of the snacks there is expectedly much higher.
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“Dagashiya” also sells other interesting thing like books and postcards of the old boy groups of Japan. This is a lot different from the Dagashiya we visited. A robot would be out of a child’s own affordance in the past time. We cannot find any robot related products (which is a very trendy icon now) in the traditional Dagashiya we visited.
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The shopkeeper is a young man, unlike the traditional Dagashiya. This shops attracts a lot of tourists like us. The size of “Dagashiya� is much larger than the previous two we visited. It needs more security device to keep an eye on their customer. You can find a big brand identity of Coca Cola in the fridge as well as a decoration on the wall. This shop surely aims at every nostalgic icons nowadays. 67
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This shop is certainly just called itself a “Dagashiya”. We both think it is better named as a “shop which also sells Dagashi”. The variety of products we found there keeps astonishing us. Here you can also buy “Fu Dai” and souvenir box set of snacks.
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and we keep on searching...
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Arriving to the Kashiya Yokocho, Kawagoe it was about 5 o’clock. The shop is closing on 5:30pm. The street were still noisy with people shopping in the stores. A clear signage guide us to the Kashiya Yokocho. This signage gives us a hit of what Kashiya Yokocho is going to feel like.
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Finally we are in the only Dagashiya in the Kagashi Yokocho, “Tanakaya�. It is more or less the same with the one in Namja Town in Sunshine City, Ikebukuro. Still, there are tourists and more adults than children.
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The price tag of the Products there give you certainty of the price of the products. Most of the Dagashi are packages and labeled as “Dagashi of Kagashi Yokocho”. Every products is packed individully and you cannot find, like also in Namja Town’s “Dagahiya”, bottles that allows you to pick the snack by bare hands. You are able to find lots of special nostalic goods which you can find “Dagashiya” in Namja town.
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