Happy Valentine’s Day!

In Japan, women give chocolates to men on Valentine's Day. This is not just for love interests, but also for men who are co-workers, etc. During the weeks before Valentine’s Day, the stores are filled with chocolate for sale. Below is a picture of a chocolate booth in the Valentine Chocolate Extravaganza at the Seibu Department Store in Tokyo. In Japanese department stores, only a small portion of the merchandise actually belongs to the department store. The rest of the space is rented out to small shops, and around Valentine’s Day the space is rented to chocolate shops.
February 14 is all about women giving chocolate to men, but men get their turn a month later, on March 14. On White Day, men must give white chocolate to all the women who gave them Valentine's chocolate, and the white chocolate must be double the value of what the men received! A Japanese man told me that one Valentine’s Day he received chocolate from fifteen women, which meant that he had a very expensive March 14!
Left to right: fresh white chocolate from Japan's north island of Hokkaido, a chocolate tin with the Penguin Suica Card logo, fresh caramel from Hokkaido, and chocolate truffles.

Vending Machines

Japan is a vending machine Mecca. You can even buy eggs from a vending machine, in front of a farmer's house! Some vending machines are refrigerated, and others are hot, for hot drinks.

And the vending machines have recycling!

Some even accept my Suica card, which is a plastic card that I use for train fare. It's a pre-paid card, and I add more money to the card as needed. In addition to using it for train and bus fare, I can use it at many vending machines and convenience stores.

The Golden Unchi

This is my favorite building in Tokyo. It's the headquarters of the Asahi beer company. The story goes that Asahi paid tons of money to a French architect to design this building. The portion on the left is supposed to look like a golden glass of beer with foam on the top. The yellow thing on the right is supposed to look like a flame, the "burning heart of Asahi beer." What do you think it looks like?

Japanese people think it looks like a cartoon drawing of poop (unchi in Japanese) and so this building, described on Wikipedia as one of Tokyo's most recognizable modern structures, is known as The Golden Turd (kin-iro no unchi)! The 360-ton golden flame, which is completely empty, was made by shipbuilders using submarine-construction techniques.

KitKats

Japan has cool varieties of KitKats!
Above: Sweet potato with sesame seeds; tiramisu; green tea tiramisu


Chile pepper. I didn't buy this one; it was too expensive!

Strawberry

Cookies; flan.

Muscat (a type of green grape). This one is my favorite!

Tsukiji Fish Market

I visited Tsukiji Fish Market, a bustling place in Tokyo. Tourists are no longer allowed to visit the early morning fish auction, but visitors can still walk through the huge market while dodging vehicles and trying to stay out of the way!
This is frozen tuna, which probably came from long distances such as coastal Europe or the Indian ocean. I thought all of the sushi in Japan would be fresh and local, but the salmon actually comes frozen from near Norway!

Scallops and shellfish

Boiled octopus

After visiting the market, I went to a restaurant across the street for some of the freshest sushi ever. A Taiwanese tourist sitting next to me ordered this shrimp sushi, which was still moving on her plate. You can see that it lifted up its tail while I was taking this picture! A gruesome sight to me, but Itsumi said that, since the head had already been removed, the shrimp was already dead and this was just a reflex, and an example of Japanese emphasis on freshness. This is certainly no more gruesome than what happens in the slaughterhouses in the United States every day.

Around the same time, my cousin MJ bought fish from Tsukiji market on the other side of the ocean, in San Francisco!

Japan is incredibly safe!

I am continually amazed at how little people worry about theft in Japan. In the morning, delivery trucks leave boxes of new products in front of the stores. The boxes sit unattended on the sidewalk for hours before the stores open, and nobody takes anything!

In restaurants, I frequently see a woman, dining alone, leave her purse unattended on her chair while using the restroom. People sleep on the trains while leaving laptops on the shelf above the seats. Remember that I am in Tokyo, the capital city, not a rural community!

The shop pictured below sells antique coins, and displays them unattended in bins outside the store. Some of these coins sell for US$70 or more.

Bicycle locks here are a flimsy affair. There are several styles of lock. Generally they hold the rear wheel in place so the bike can't be ridden, but there is nothing to stop a thief from picking up the bicycle and carrying it away. Nonetheless, the bikes don't seem to get stolen. A bicycle with this type of lock in Fort Collins, my former town, would surely be stolen, (people will steal just a wheel or a seat if they can get nothing else) but not in Japan!

In the farm communities outside of Tokyo, and even in an agricultural area within Tokyo, farmers sell their produce at self-serve stands. Customers take what they want and leave payment in a tin can. Neither the produce nor the money in the can is protected from theft, but the system seems to work here. Below you can see yuzu, a special kind of oranges used for the flavorful peel, and a money can on the left.Of course, I am always careful about the way I carry money and belongings while traveling, but it's really pleasant to live in a place where I don't have to worry much about crime.

Strange sushi

This is what raw horse sushi looks like!