WHITE DAY

Some commercially ambitious individual decided that the Western holiday of St. Valentine's Day should not only be celebrated in Japan, but celebrated twice. Thus, White Day.

In Japan, March 14th marks the converse holiday of February 14th. The days are separated by gender: whereas women buy men chocolates and gifts for St. Valentine's Day, men return the favor by treating the women on White Day. For some reason, the Japanese regard the opposing color of Red to be White, as opposed to being the opposite of Black, so I guess that has something to do with it.

My girl blessed me with a new space heater and some Godiva chocolates for "Red Day," so I figured I'd blow some cash on some chocolate for her. I'm not even into that sorta thing either--just trying to be a sweet guy. Anyway, I'd been distracted by so much this past week I'd forgotten to pick some candy up. We'd already planned to see each other today, so my plan was to get up early and run to Nagoya Station and pick some up. I didn't end up leaving the house 'til after noon, which was okay, but by that time there was peak shopping traffic at the shops. Droves upon droves of people running around doing regular shopping, plus all the guys, such as myself who were looking for last-minute White Day stuff. I couldn't walk ten paces without having to dodge or stop in my tracks for somebody--which quickly reminded me why I don't like shopping. Especially in Japan.

Everytime I go shopping at Nagoya Station, it boggles my mind how much over-priced crap can be crammed into one place. Just to find the Godiva shop, I had to go the information desk on the ground level of Takashimaya department store, which is kind of the Japanese equivalent of Marshall Field's back home. Ususally, in major service and retail stores, the information staffpeople are trained to speak English, so I always speak English when asking for information, kinda to keep them on their toes. The information lady spoke English pretty well, although I could tell she was nervous and she asked me to repeat myself a couple times. She sent me on a what I believed was a wild goose hunt through a multi-leveled labyrinth of crowds and super-expensive crap. It's extremely hard to get specific directions in this country. Driving is the worst, but in a store, the best you can get is the floor number, that's it. From there you're own your own. It took about a half-hour of searching, before I finally found the tiny Godiva "stand" that was hard to spot amidst all the other counters and mini-retail markets all over the mall. The smallest box they had was like $30! I was like, "Is this all you have?" The stand girl told me there was another Godiva counter close by which had a bigger selection. I found the other stand within 5 minutes, and was looking at their selection which was also super-pricey. I broke down and said "I'll take the little 1,500 yen box, please." Sold out. Doh. "Okay, I'll take the tiny 2,000 yen box then." Sold out. Doh. "What do you have?" I asked. It turned out not much--afterall it was already White Day!

I ended up buying a set of individual chocolates, which they put in a box and wrapped for me. I ended up spending over US $10 for six little pieces of chocolate. Doh!

Actually, I don't think my girl would have minded if I hadn't bought her those chocolates, but when .Anyway, when she got them, she seemed happy, so I was happy, and that was that.

White Day. It's a Japanese thang. I still don't understand.