Explore everyday life in Japan
Sometimes, it’s fun to take a trip to the penny candy store.
Depending on where you are in Japan, you may be fortunate enough to be able to take a short walk around town and find yourself standing in front of an old-fashioned candy store. If that’s not the case, you may be able to find one at one of the hundreds of AEON shopping malls that are scattered across the country. And if you strike out there, then you will have to hope that you stumble across a traveling food fair, of which there are many, that is temporarily set up in a department store and is dedicated to selling old-fashioned sweets.
I don’t know for sure, but I have to assume that for Japanese people, taking a trip to a penny candy store is nostalgic. Perhaps it is changing with the times, but I imagine that the candy and toys which are sold in these stores bring back memories of their youth when they visited these stores with their grandparents, who were probably also caught up in the nostalgia that some of these items brought about.
For me, a trip to the penny candy store is something of an adventure. It is a glimpse into a past that is not my own—wooden toys and games that I didn’t grow up with, simple entertainments, candies, and flavors that I had never seen before coming to Japan.
It is fun, being able to fill a basket to the brim with things like roast chicken flavored potato chips, butter flavored crispy puffs, salty, chewy wakame seaweed snacks, Japanese plum flavored hard candies, and shrimp flavored rice crackers, etc. All for less than the equivalent of $5.00 (USD).
If you find yourself in Japan, I highly recommend a trip to the penny candy store.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.