St. Valentine's Day

Since the end of January, a lot of department stores start setting a temporary counter of Valentine's days chocolate, and try to call customers. On those days, people buy chocolates that they usually don't buy, like very expensive yummy foreign chocolates, so all stores are get heated to sell unique products.

Japanese Valentine's day is kind a unique thing compared to other countries one. Firstly, only girls give their boyfriend chocolates. It is very vary rare that guys give their girlfriends something, and I haven't heard of it yet about people around me. So, the customers coming to those counters are mostly girls. Some people even buy a lot of chocolates as a trial, and eat by themselves and consider which to buy for their boyfriends. So, this season is kind a very hot term to the department stores and girls.

Other than giving chocolates to boyfriends, we give some simple (and cheap, lol) chocolates to guys who are around us either. It is like saying thank you to people who are taking care of us in daily life. But there are some sly girls that give chocolates because of the expectation of something expensive giving back on White day; it is on March 14 and guys give girls some sweets back as gratitude. And another case girls buying expensive chocolates is "as a present for herself". Since we are living tough days, sometimes we want to give ourselves a little bit expensive sweets as a present, and we can work hard from tomorrow again. Chocolates for Valentine's day are a good thing for it since a lot of yummy chocolates we can't get normally are available :)