February 14th is Valentine’s Day every year… I wonder whether everyone has been eating their chocolate. For some reason I can’t explain, in Japan everybody and their neighbour goes mad trying to buy chocolate every single year. Going by YouTube, Japan is a country on the verge of collapse… so I’m not sure this recession is real.

Anyway, it wasn’t even February — I visited Nagoya a few weeks before that, and what shocked me was the enormous queue at the entrance of the Takashimaya department store. It looked like it ran a few hundred metres. I found myself wondering if this was sane.

The venue

There really wasn’t room to put a foot down. More to the point, it wasn’t just that there were so many people — the queues at the famous stands were already so long that there was no way to buy anything. I heard that some of them handed out numbered tickets in the morning and ran out the moment the doors opened.

This kind of atmosphere

There was no way to actually do anything here… so I just had a look around.

SNOWS

This was the place everyone was mad about this year, and they were given a whole floor to themselves. But it was already sold out, so I couldn’t even go inside. I still have no idea what they actually do.

A cafe

The design had a real impact, so I took a photo.

Inside the building

Just took a photo, no particular reason.

The exhibition info

It’s fun that I get to come across unusual chocolate every year, but the difficulty level does seem to keep climbing. Getting hold of chocolate from a famous brand is pretty much something you have to give up on now… well, I suppose I should just enjoy it.

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