February 14 is the great celebration of chocolate in Japan: contrary to what happens in the rest of the world, on Valentine's Day everyone gives chocolates to everyone to whom they have some social obligation, hence the name "giri-choco" (義理チョコ) i.e. "obligation chocolate (in theory, only women are supposed to give them to men but that doesn't happen 100%). Anyway, all department stores set for that period special sections selling only chocolates of all kinds by various chocolatiers and most will offer you some to try -if you are a chocolate fan there's no better time to be in Japan. From our visit to three of these stores (Ginza's Matsuya and Mitsukoshi and Ueno's Matsuzakaya), for which I've also set up a special album on Flickr here, perhaps the best spot was this of a company specializing in Godzilla chocolates.
(For a bigger version of these pictures both in color and black and white, check my "Japan Arekore" set on Flickr)
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