Kamikawakuchiya, The Oldest Dagashiya in Japan

Kamikawakuchiya is located inside of the Zoshigaya Kishimojindo Temple grounds. It has been in business for around 230 years since the opening in 1781 and is known as the oldest Dagashiya in Japan. The current store building was built in the late nineteenth century and survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the bombardments of World War II. The current owner of the shop is Uchiyama Masayo, who is the thirteenth owner since the opening of the Kamikawakuchiya dagashi store.

The Zoshigaya Kishimojindo Temple is a Buddhist temple that is named Kishimojin because of the guardian deity of children and the goddess of easy delivery. The Goddess Kishimojin was also said to bring luck for fertility and child bearing. The temple was founded in 1578 and the main building was built in 1664. The trees on the temple grounds are 400 year old gingko trees that have been designed as a Natural Monument by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The largest tree is named "Oichou" and is 600 years old. This temple is also one of the most famous in Tokyo and belongs to the Tokyo Cultural Heritage with a history of over 300 years.

The store itself sells a large variety of dagashi ranging from handmade Kinako-ame to Pocky and Ramune. A large basket is used to hold all the snacks that you pick and the store owner would count all the snacks and price the group of snacks using a chart. The smaller snacks are individually priced very cheaply as one Kinako-ame is 10 Yen and larger amounts of snacks would usually cost less than 500 Yen.

The dagashiya is close to two of the JR stations; the Mejiro station and the Ikebukuro station, and they both take 12 minutes to reach the store. The Toden Arakawa train line also stops close to the Zoshigaya Kishimojindo temple at Kishibojinmae Station and is 5 minutes away. Also take note that the Dagashi store is closed on rainy days.