Valentines's Day. Chocolates galore! and a visit to Muji Part 1.

Vday in Japan is all about chocolates. It's srs business.  Even before February, streets, shops and even 7/11 stores are filled with boxes and boxes of chocolates on sale. I was surprised at first because there weren't balloons or flowers here, just chocolates. So I did a little search and found out that this was a really successful marketing campaign by Meiji, Morninaga and Kobe Mozoroff. So now Valentine's in Japan = chocolate.

Shelves of Valentines day in convenience stores

Even Eva chocs for the anime lover!

(pictures stolen off google)

And the only people giving out chocolates are girls. Guys are happy people receiving chocolates, even if they didn't have a girlfriend. Which probably explains the eva chocolates.

At first I thought it was weird that so many people would buy chocolates for someone special from convenience stores. Then I remembered how people in Japan love giving out little gifts on occasions and I guess Vday is no exception. Chocolates are even categorized by who they are given to!

本命チョコ (honmei-choco) = chocolates for your one and only true love

友チョコ(tomo-choco) = chocolates for friends

義理チョコ(giri-choco) = chocolates you give to people because you feel obliged to. 

eg. if I give A-kun a chocolate B-kun will feel bad because he is totally not popular so I should give him some too. But if I only give chocolates to A-kun and B-kun then I need to give C-kun and D-kun too or else I'll look like a selfish bitch so okay time to go chocolate shopping. 

Mostly it's just a good excuse to get into the kitchen and start baking and giving nice stuff.

There has been an article floating around the internets about how Japanese girls put menstrual blood/hair/stuff that sounds like you put into a polyjuice potion into their chocolates and I really hope that isn't true. As far as I know, people do put wasabi into giri-choco or tomo-choco as a prank though.

So anyway, Kenickie was telling me about how Muji had an awesome interesting event at Shibuya.

So I decided to visit Muji a few days back when I was walking around Ikebukuro! Sadly, they didn't have that display there D: there was lots of Valentine's day stuff around though. I love love love walking around in Muji. Love the whole woody ~natural~ feel of the place. And almost everytime end up buying something because it just looks so simple and nice lol.

This time I ended up buying a Valentine's edition of a DIY kit for making florentine cookies that I will review after these :D

Shelves and shelves of DIY kits. Chocolate cakes, brownies, cookies, truffles, you name it.

More shelves of chocolates and DIY kits. Alos, Muji's selection of fair trade chocolates was wrapped in a pretty ribbon for Valentine's!

Free stamping area for your gift wrappers! Small ideas like that is why I love Muji.

 
 Corner where you can make your own perfumes I think. Lots of different scents to choose from. And more valentines day gifts.