Valentine's Day in Japan

Yes, I know this is very out of date and I apologize. I have been feeling lazy lately and computers have been full whenever I did get in the mood to write in the past three weeks.
Now for those of you in the States, you may not know about the Japanese (I think the started it although I saw it in Korea as well) tradition of V-Day and White day. Valentine's day is the day that women give the guys stuff, often chocolate, and White Day is the day men are supposed to give the women a gift three times as expensive. One "tradition" I found amusing when I learned of White Day was that daughters often spent a lot on their dads in hopes of getting jewelry or an expensive handbag. Another thing is that men supposedly aren't big on chocolate. Wives present the chocolate to husbands and then eat it all "secretly". Anyways, White Day was March 14th for those curious and I wasn't in Japan then so this is more about how I spent V-day, (or as my brother called it once: Gimme-chocolate-or-be-in-the-doghouse-for-weeks Day, or something like that.)
One of the aspects of Valentine's Day gifts in Japan is that handmade gifts mean stronger emotions. I was excited to discover that the idea included handmade chocolates. For those of you who know my family, you probably know my mom is what is called a "chocolatier" (I think that's spelled right). That means she makes her own chocolate candies, usually by hand. (I don't know if people who use machines to help make their chocolates still count as chocolatiers, which is where the "usually" came in. My mom always makes her candies by hand.) She's done her candies every year since before I was born, or so it seems, and every year I was home I used to watch her or help her make them. My help usually consisted of moving trays and keeping her company (or watching tv until she needed a tray moved). This year I spent all Christmas away from home and missed the typical mess (and candy) that accompanied the process. (yes, they sent me some of the product from the annual batch but I realized I missed the process itself.) So I went to the mall and picked up three different types of milk chocolate and two accompanying types of dark chocolate as well as some candies to nibble on as I worked and some glass bowls to work with and utensils to play with in the chocolate. Then I went to the grocery store for some things to dip before heading to my friend's hotel room to use her stove. On V-Day I made dipped banana slices, the ones already dried, and dipped dried apricots as well as dipped raisens and peanuts, even a few small molds. The milk chocolate I used that day was a little too sour for my taste, thinking back it either had more cacao than I prefer or was baking chocolate. Either way they were liked. I tried to make barks but the chocolate didn't want to set so it ended up weird. Oh well, the point of the attempts was to play with the chocolate, not to make something to give anyone specail. I wound up bringing the candies into work to find out most of my coworkers are on perpetual diets. Yay. Three pleople eating a few dozen small pieces of chocolate dipped fruit was why I brought the box in. I love people who look fine but want to be perfect forever. Well, enough of that rant, the next weekend I tried a type of chocolate called Ghana that made exellent dipped candies and we ate it all up. Well, that was my Valentine's Day and I need to run for food now so I'll tell you about Korea another time. Stay tuned. :)
This is Li'l B wishing you all a fun day and signing off.