Don't monkey with my heart, Valentine!

I'll take it as a good sign that two women looked at the chocolate I was buying and said in unison, "Scaaaaary!" It's not scary! This Zoology chocolate line is great. There are also hippos, crocodiles (large and bite-size), frogs, and big game heads. I think it's the same company that makes the demon bear I picked up a few years ago. They don't seem to have a website, though the jungle animal chocolates have been spotted in the wild (yeah!) since at least 2009.
In a further attempt to cast doubt on my chocolate choice, the cashier asked first, hesitantly, if it was a gift, and then if I wanted generic or Valentine's wrapping. I felt from the tone of her voice that there was a right answer, and Valentine's Day was not it. I say an adorable monkey chocolate given out of love beats a pile of pretty chocolates given out of obligation, every single time.

Bleeding flower and crazy frog 和菓子体験

What are you looking at?

We went to Yatsuhashi, the home of one of Kyoto's most famous sweets makers, and tried our hand at whipping up some tasty little wagashi. The flower is supposed to have just a pale pink showing beneath the white part. I accidentally snipped the ingenious springy scissors all the way into the red-bean filling. And the crazy frog is meant to be a delicately curled leaf with two raindrops sitting serenely atop. Oh, well. It was fun. It's ¥1500 per person. You can make all kinds of different treats - as long as they're some variation of red bean paste wrapped in white bean paste. Everything is set up when you get there, and a slightly unamused expert guides you through the rolling, dyeing, pressing, and shaping. You also get to froth up your own bowl of maccha with a bamboo whisk. Mine tasted like grass clippings, but other people's tasted more or less like green tea. We'd all scooped the powdered tea out of the same pot, so apparently there's some technique to it.

Future flower

Do you realize!?

Wronged Bear says, you call that music!?