Fortuitous chocolate

(And no, I'm not talking about a lucky New Orleans resident of color.)

Time for the big college entrance tests in Japan! You know what that means: time to put up cherry blossom decorations!


Station entry


The brick walkway to the station near work has been covered with a big pink sticker with patterns on it. ..well, actually, the whole station is covered in the stuff. Hmm, seems to be some words on the ceiling. What could it be?


Kit-to Kat-to: sakura Goodo Rucku!

A commercial! And a school girl. And sakura blossoms. Hey, wait a minute.. what's the connection?

Luckily for the folks who make KitKat (which, interestingly, depends on the country you're in), the name KitKat sounds a lot like Kitto Katto, which roughly translates to "Possibly Victorious!" It's good luck food to eat before a test, and it sells big time, right before these big tests. The other good luck snack is Pocky, for reasons I've yet to discover.

.. It's possible that the remodeling of the convenience store "Lawson" inside the station might also be a reason for all the decorations.. like possibly a "Sorry the store's unavailable and stuff, but at least there's cool decorations for you to look at. (Kindly disregard that we get money from Nestle.)"

As for why sakura?.. What's your guess? Maybe it helps forget about the low temperatures? ..Instilling hopes for spring into the stressed little overly-full-with-memorization Japanese schoolgirl and schoolboy brains? Honestly, I wanna hear what you think.

日本人：「きっとかっと」はせいかいですか？いみは何ですか？