Depachika: the food basement & the art of wagashi

Depachika is the food basement of a Japanese department store, and it's one of the strangest things visitors walk straight past: two brightly lit underground floors, hundreds of counters, pastry displayed like jewellery in glass cases, and staff peeling fruit by hand as if performing a rite.

Two hours across four families. Wagashi — traditional sweets of red bean and rice flour that change shape and name with the season, and this season's are not last season's reissued. Japanese-Western pastry — techniques learned from France and then lightened, noticeably less sweet than the original. Luxury fruit — the counter where a single melon costs as much as dinner for two, and where you'll hear exactly why. And finally the prepared-food counters, what Tokyo office workers actually buy on their way home.

You taste from each. Your guide explains how to read the freshness labels, what will survive a flight home and what has to be eaten today — genuinely useful if you're buying gifts. It's short, easy, entirely indoors, and a good answer to a rainy or brutally hot day.