Valentines Day in Japan

Happy Valentines Day from Japan!!!! Like most countries, Japan's looking for a reason to celebrate and spend money.  Valentines Day is no exception.  Interestingly, on Valentines Day, girls are supposed to give chocolates to the boys and then boys give them to the girls on White Day in March.  

These displays showed up in my local grocery store in January. I love how on my of their products (especially food) they have samples shown so you know exactly what you are getting.  

This is a full display.  Each type of chocolate has different size products available to fit any budget. 

They had chocolates available in many different styles.  

I bought Philip one of these Gundam chocolates.  

At a department store near Nagoya station, they held a Valentines Day Chocolate event. This was downstairs advertising it. 

This picture doesn't even do the chaos justice.  It was rows of chocolate makers selling all sorts of chocolates.  Most brands I have never even heard of. 

This one was one of the most amusing sellers.  Beetle, as in Volkswagon Beetle! They were selling VW Bug shaped chocolates!

I liked this one and thought of one of my good friends who loves green and camo.  

I'm a big Animal Crossing fan, as I have mentioned before.  I saw in one of my online groups that Godiva was doing a collaboration with Animal Crossing here in Japan! I couldn't resist going to get some for myself, lol.  Happy Valentines to me! 😂 They had an even bigger, round box of chocolates, but I got this one as it had the bag.  I couldn't justify buying both to myself. Hahaha!

These are the chocolates I bought for G and C. 

Philip likes Gundam, especially building them, so I couldn't resist buying him Gundam chocolates!

Hope you have a great Valentines Day!  Which chocolates were your favorite?

Parade in Sakae

This tourism site for the Aichi Prefecture, where I live, has better information than I can give you on why they had this parade. https://www.aichi-now.jp/en/spots/detail/62/ 

This is Nagoya's mascot, the grampus. It's a killer whale, but depicted old style. 

There was a fair of sorts, with different artisans showing off their wares and sharing their skills for people to try as well as buying their products.

This man was making origami cranes out of soda cans. 

C painted a clay ball and made it smooth like glass using a bottle.

We visited the Ghibli Store. 

The last thing we did was eat dinner before we headed home. We ate at Yoshinoya. Yes, they really do exist in Japan. This particular store only had seating open for single people, so that's where we sat. It was good and fast. 

I didn't notice there was salad dressing until I had eaten almost all my salad. 🤣😂