Japanese mom-and-pop candy store “Dagashi-ya”

When I was a kid, I used to go to “Dagashi-ya” as soon as my parents gave me an allowance. Mostly I spent all there. Do you think I wasted money? Maybe I did, but the moments was precious to me. There were many attractions as well such as lotteries, card games, and more. The place was my playground.

Recently “Dagashi-ya” has been decreasing. There is no store around my house. It’s too sad. Maybe its business is not profitable and hard to manage. They sell not only snacks but also dreams. When I was a kid, I felt it, but “Dagashi-ya” is not wiped out of existence.

We can still visit the stores in other areas. Specially Kuramae of Ohedo-Line is famous in Tokyo. A few years ago Nishi-Nippori was the most famous place of “Dagashi-ya” in Tokyo, but stores were demolished by an urban-development project.

I wanna take my kids to “Dagashi-ya” although I don’t have any kids right now. I have some regrets in my life, but “Dagashi-ya” is my precious thing, and it will tell my kids the same feeling as mine.

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Japanese ski resort, “Oze-Iwakura”

Last weekend I had 3-day vacation and went snowboarding with some friends. I heard that recently many foreign skiers and snowboarders came to Japan, because the quality of snow in Japan is quite high. I think it is about Hokkaido.

Anyway I went to Oze-Iwakura in Gunma prefecture, which was located in the north of Tokyo. On the way to the ski resort, I could see no snow. I was worried if there was no snow in our destination. I drove more than 5 hours with irritating traffic jam, and then no snow… It would be a terrible consequence.

Once I arrived, my concern was disappeared. The condition of snow was OK. We checked in a hotel, VILLA Arco, just in front of slopes. 10,000JPY for each with meals is not too bad. There is a bathroom with a jacuzzi. What do you think? The longest course was approximately 2,800M. It was enough for me, because this was my first snowboarding at this season.

Unfortunately one of my friends broke his collarbone in the morning of the last day, and we drove back to Tokyo with 70km traffic jam. It sounds unhappy, but one thing was good. We found a delicious soba restaurant, “Mumon”. I love noodles especially soba. It was a handmade soba noodle in hot soup with roasted duck. Wow! Amazingly tasty. This made me happy.

You know, I’m very simple. If you go somewhere in Japan, there must be specialty food of each town just like everywhere. Mostly those things are delicious.

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