Black and White and Valentine's All Over

It's been one year today since I celebrated Japan's version of Valentine's Day, and after gorging on chocolate and buying some of the little paper Valentine's we give out in the States, I think I'm all set to plunge full on into the holiday spirit.

Valentine's Day in Japan still happens on February 14, but unlike the US where we give out cards, candy, and flowers to everyone, the girls give chocolate to that very special guy they've been thinking about all year. This love chocolate is something usually handmade, and given only to that guy, while obligatory chocolate can be store bought and is given to those guys in your life you're obliged to give chocolate to, like friends and family. My friend Elin and I double-teamed to make some chocolate dipped matcha cookies to give to our friends.


Don't worry, guys have to pay back with cake or cookies, or something more special, depending on what they were given for their Valentine's Day gift. This is done one month later on March 14 and is known as White Day. My friend Yosuke gave all the girls who gave him sweets black tea cake as an exchange.

Of course, there's a holiday for those who ended up forever alone on both holidays as well. It's an unofficial holiday known as Black Day, where you go out and eat black noodles in ramen.

In my case, I decided to give into my American chocolate desire and bought some Pokemon chocolate. If you've noticed a theme with Pokemon, it's because yes, of course, I love Pokemon.

And it loves me back.

Cosplay Festival! Rollin' in Nipponbashi

March 24 saw spring weather finally starting to hit us, and with it came the chance to finally get out and about. Well, maybe not too far about, as it was more a chance to head down to Nipponbashi again to see what sort of things the cosplay festival was bringing.

Unless you work at a maid cafe, cosplaying in public is pretty much banned in Japan. Bigger events like Comiket offer changing rooms for skilled cosplayers to transform into their favorite characters. Sometimes amusement parks and different resorts will hold events that allow for themed cosplay to help show appreciation to the fans that came for it. And then there are cosplay festivals, a day when towns allow everyone who wants to cosplay to do so. Just like Comiket, there are areas designated to change into cosplay in. After you do so it's into the fray of cosplays and photographers and special events in stores.

The parking lots are also cleared out so that cosplayers and itasha owners can strut their stuff in the area.

Some cosplays more thorough than others. 

Itasha originally were named in reference to Italian cars, but now refer to the pain one's wallet feels after decking out your car with your favorite character or franchise.

This Blue Rose fan from Tiger and Bunny really went all out.

Getting to this bundle of joy though was rather difficult. We had meant to arrive in the morning, catching the 1110 train, but it was delayed...and delayed...and delayed some more. The reason: crows had pecked through a power source to the line leaving trains paralyzed along the line we needed to take into Osaka.

As I did not receive any cosplayers permission to post pictures online, I won't be showing off any of that great stuff here, but it was all very impressive.