Candy Tour - Part Two: Western Tokyo

November 14, 2007

We visited Tokyo both before and after our trip to Kyoto, which is described in a previous post. One of the reasons we decided to go to Japan is because we are both city people, and Tokyo is the ne plus ultra of urbanity. Needless to say, it did not disappoint. Imagine the density of Manhattan spread out over the acreage of Los Angeles and you’ll get the idea.

We started off in Shinjuku, near the world’s busiest train station. While on that side of the city, we knew we wanted to seek out Papabubble, a confectioner that started out in Barcelona and has since opened stores in Amsterdam, Tokyo and, most recently, New York. Papabubble is known for hard candies handmade on their premises right in front of you. They also have a contemporary and irreverent sense of design, unlike many American candymakers, who try to project an old-fashioned country store image. In Tokyo, Papabubble’s store is located in the Nakano district, a residential neighborhood just a few train stops away from Shinjuku. In addition to Papabubble, we were looking forward to seeing a real Tokyo neighborhood off the beaten tourist path.

When we arrived, we quickly realized that we would never find the store without asking for directions. Addresses in Tokyo are not organized by street, as they are in the U.S., but by district. Within each district, there is a sub-district, and from there each building is assigned a numbered address, in seemingly random order - so that number 2 could be next to number 85, which might be next to number 47, etc… This does not make finding things easy, even for locals.

We had asked several people where Papabubble was, to no avail, when we stumbled across a young couple with a baby who answered “yes” to our question. We expected to receive directions to the store in broken English; instead, the couple turned around and beckoned us to follow them. We figured the store was on the next block, but they just kept walking and walking - in the opposite direction from where they had been headed. They ended up walking us about half a mile to where Papabubble was, then waved goodbye and headed back to their original destination. We excitedly approached the store, only to find that we had arrived on the one day of the week they are closed. After all that, we were able to do no more than peek into the windows. Oh well, such is life - at least we can check out the store next time we are in New York…

On our way back to the train station, all we could talk about was how we couldn’t believe that young couple would go to such lengths to help out some stupid tourists looking for a candy store. It was one of our first days in Japan - we soon learned that nearly everyone we would ask for help (and we did so often) would act this same way.

Stay tuned for Part Three of the Candy Tour, where we check out the rest of Tokyo.

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