Adventures in Japan

I'm pretty sure I gave him some chocolate...

There were two quasi-holidays in Japan this week: White Day & St Patrick's Day. White Day is a purely commercial invention à la Valentine's Day. You see, because in Japan only women give chocolate to men on the Big V (not necessarily having anything to do with romance), they need a whole other holiday for men to buy gifts for women. Gifts worth 5 to 10 times more than the chocolate they received. Why? Because it's "White Day". What other reason should they need? As for St. Patrick's Day, it gets some recognition over here. Some cities even have parades. Not Osaka, though. Just green beer et al in the Irish-themed bars. I'm sure it's all very festive, but Tyler & I gave it a miss (he's sick and I'm well on my way to being as miserable as he is). Pity us, won't you?

The actual day-off-work holiday this month is the Vernal Equinox. I don't think anything particularly special goes on, just a day off work, but you won't hear me complaining! And as near as I can tell, the Japanese have no use for Easter, but it's only a matter of time until the stores have them scrambling to buy little chocolate eggs and bunny paraphernalia.

My throat hurts.