Posted by Jess
14 February 2011
It's Valentine's Day and although I'm away from my valentine because I'm traveling, I will be joining a colleague for an "Anti-Valentine's Day" celebration in Switzerland. We might stage a big lovers quarrel or have him propose to me and I'll say no. Something fun to get the French-Swiss talking about those crazy foreigners!
Anyway, thought I'd do a quick post about Valentine's Day celebrations here in Japan. On Valentine's Day, women give men chocolates or gifts. They give these to the men that they love and then also give chocolates to their male co-workers - these are called giri-choco, or "chocolates of obligation". Men do not (traditionally) give women gifts on Valentine's Day. There is a recent trend for girls to give their friends chocolate as well.
However, men do reciprocate the gift on White Day, which is March 14th. That's when the whole thing is reversed. Women who gave the men chocolates or gifts get something in return and female co-workers get giri-choco.
I left some chocolate at the office before the weekend and hope for some good stuff in return on White Day.
Ella's school did valentines today too. She wrote out all the names herself and signed all the cards - since there's only 9 other kids and 2 teachers. Next year in a Kindergarten of 25 kids or so, I think we'll have to do it in shifts so her hand doesn't cramp up!
We celebrated as a family on Friday night last week with a family dinner to a local Italian restaurant - To The Herbs. All was looking good as they had a kids' menu and a menu in English, plus wine by the glass. Too bad the kids menu wasn't in English though because I thought I was ordering plain pasta and got pasta with shrimp sauce for the girls. Oh my. We ordered a new pasta dish for Ella knowing the revolt that would happen if we tried to give her something that smelled fishy, but thought Abby would eat it. No such luck. Two bites and she was out. Not only that, when we had plain spaghetti noodles for her later she refused to eat those two. Stubborn little girl! They both enjoyed the ice cream that came with their meals though and neither one had any problems gobbling that up. Here are some photos from our family Valentine's Day dinner.
And lastly...My Funny Valentines that I'm missing very much today! (complete with Ella purposefully doing a 'Pirate Smile')
Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!
Kanpai!
Jess
14 February 2011
It's Valentine's Day and although I'm away from my valentine because I'm traveling, I will be joining a colleague for an "Anti-Valentine's Day" celebration in Switzerland. We might stage a big lovers quarrel or have him propose to me and I'll say no. Something fun to get the French-Swiss talking about those crazy foreigners!
Anyway, thought I'd do a quick post about Valentine's Day celebrations here in Japan. On Valentine's Day, women give men chocolates or gifts. They give these to the men that they love and then also give chocolates to their male co-workers - these are called giri-choco, or "chocolates of obligation". Men do not (traditionally) give women gifts on Valentine's Day. There is a recent trend for girls to give their friends chocolate as well.
However, men do reciprocate the gift on White Day, which is March 14th. That's when the whole thing is reversed. Women who gave the men chocolates or gifts get something in return and female co-workers get giri-choco.
I left some chocolate at the office before the weekend and hope for some good stuff in return on White Day.
Ella's school did valentines today too. She wrote out all the names herself and signed all the cards - since there's only 9 other kids and 2 teachers. Next year in a Kindergarten of 25 kids or so, I think we'll have to do it in shifts so her hand doesn't cramp up!
We celebrated as a family on Friday night last week with a family dinner to a local Italian restaurant - To The Herbs. All was looking good as they had a kids' menu and a menu in English, plus wine by the glass. Too bad the kids menu wasn't in English though because I thought I was ordering plain pasta and got pasta with shrimp sauce for the girls. Oh my. We ordered a new pasta dish for Ella knowing the revolt that would happen if we tried to give her something that smelled fishy, but thought Abby would eat it. No such luck. Two bites and she was out. Not only that, when we had plain spaghetti noodles for her later she refused to eat those two. Stubborn little girl! They both enjoyed the ice cream that came with their meals though and neither one had any problems gobbling that up. Here are some photos from our family Valentine's Day dinner.
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| Giving Mommy and Daddy the Valentines she made in school |
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| Asked Ella to take a picture of Jason and I. Abby wanted to be in it too - we now have like 30 outtakes from trying to get that shot. And note, none posted here. |
And lastly...My Funny Valentines that I'm missing very much today! (complete with Ella purposefully doing a 'Pirate Smile')
Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!
Kanpai!
Jess
4:00 PM |
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1 comments
Comments (1)
I don't know you directly, only know of you through Kari, but wow... how exciting that you are living in Japan now. Quite different than sweet little Ellsworth, ha! :o)