Today is Valentine’s Day in Japan. What would normally be a day of loneliness and misery is dissolved by chocolate. Unlike in England, where you are expected to buy flowers, chocolates, and take your partner for a meal, Valentine’s Day is remarkably different here. It is on this day that women buy chocolates for men. I have become very used to not receiving even a card on this day, so when I found myself unable to leave my house because of the vast quantities of chocolate blocking my path, it was a pleasant surprise. Even my dentist gave me chocolates, which is rather odd considering the high sugar content and the effect it will have on my teeth.

In Japan, one month after Valentine’s Day is White Day. On White Day, the man returns the gesture to those who gifted him by buying the women sweets. As much as I appreciate the abundance of chocolate that I received today, it becomes apparent that White Day will be extremely expensive for me.

It is perhaps a sad part of Japanese culture that on Valentine’s Day, a man will wait with anticipation to receive chocolates from a woman that he might like, if only for the opportunity to return the gesture a month later. It is this style of gift-giving that makes the shy Japanese male miserable when no chocolate is received. I suppose that this theme remains common among all other cultures; Valentine’s Day and the misery attached to it. I can hardly complain, though. I received many gifts, despite the fact that I don’t really like the taste of chocolate. I actually preferred playing with the bubble wrap, after a nine-month absence of popping pockets of air-filled plastic.

After consuming the equivalent of my weight in confectionery, I head into Asakusa. Today, I have decided to finally visit a temple that I walk past every single day but never visit. It is a temple that is always absent of people, possibly cursed, and is surrounded by some strange energy that I have previously been unable to bring myself to ingress.

The temple offers very little description about itself; not even a name. Before the temple sits a small rock garden where it is impossible to view all of the rocks from any one angle. It is said that if you are truly enlightened, then you are able to see the eighth rock. Despite the various viewing angles I deploy, I find it impossible to see every rock at the same time, and consider that even those that surpass the normal level of human consciousness would still find it difficult to see all of the stones at the same time. Other than a cemetery for the wealthy tucked behind the temple, nothing much else is on offer here.

I leave the temple and head over to Akihabara. Today, there is an art exhibition taking place at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, a former high school converted into an art gallery. The exhibition features students who will graduate next month from the Takarazuka University of Art and Design. A friend of mine works for the university and has invited me along to sample the artwork of his students.

There are seventeen displays here from seventeen students, all twenty-two-year-old women. The first thing that strikes me is that a lot of the pieces have some form of macabre imagery. Paintings depict homosexual angels, others heavily feature corpses, and some are simply storyboards for books about clowns for children; obviously, the clowns look deliberately menacing and have been painted just to scare me.

Other pieces here are heavily influenced by famous stories. One piece is based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s ‘The Spider’s Thread,’ a story about too many people in hell (known in the story as the Pool of Blood) as they try to escape and reach the paradise above. One man walking through a forest didn’t kill a spider one day, so the silk of a spider’s web is dropped down to hell from paradise in an attempt to rescue him. Everyone reaches for the web in an attempt to climb to safety. Obviously, the weight of everyone in hell is far too heavy for the silk, and the web snaps, committing everyone to the Pool of Blood for eternity.

The highlight of the exhibition is a piece by Ozawa Yuki. Her painting depicts a dream, more specifically, the moment when you become fully awake and are only able to remember fragments of what was left behind. Another artist that I enjoy is Ogawa Sayako. These two pieces offer less of a description but are once again based on dreams. Something about places in dreams never existing anywhere in real life. I suppose these pieces are my favourite due to their abstruse and rather abstract style. After the art, I take the packed rush-hour train back to Asakusa, somewhat confused by the imagery I have just viewed.

There are certain things that become written about more often than others in Japan: signs with bad English and vending machines. I am guilty of writing about both of these things, and perhaps they aren’t the most interesting to mention. But when I saw another strange vending machine, I got a little excited, so I decided to include it here.

This machine, covered in dust, sells batteries from 1931. These batteries, made by Panasonic, are no longer in production. Yet, this machine sells them for around ¥300 a pair. Even though they do claim to be a ‘Top Seller,’ batteries are the very last thing I need in my life right now. The machine doesn’t actually work and seems absent of any power. Somewhat ironically, what the machine could really do with is some new batteries.