Last week was March 14th, exactly one month after Valentine's Day. The holiday is pretty different in Japan compared to Western countries, with women giving gifts of chocolate to their male friends, boyfriends, and co-workers, but receiving nothing in return. A while ago, people thought that was pretty unfair. So, White Day was born.

White Day is the holiday when men return the favors to the women in their lives. Usually, they will give gifts to the people that they have feelings for, as well as to anyone who gave them gifts for Valentine's Day. These gifts can be anything, of course, but I've noticed that most of the White Day-themed gifts are, unsurprisingly, white chocolate. Chocolate-covered strawberries and other fruits are also popular, yum!

One of my favorite parts of White Day is getting chocolate from my coworkers. Since quite a few of the female staff members brought chocolate for Valentine's Day, some of my male coworkers returned the favor for White Day last week by bringing chocolate to share with the office. After all of the kids had gone home and we returned to the staff room, we all had coffee and our chocolate, as well as some little cakes. It's always a really nice time to chat with the coworkers, and admiring the different chocolates is so fun! Department stores always sell special types of chocolate for Valentine's Day and White Day.

It's also a pretty big thing to melt chocolate and put it in fun molds. Maybe next year, I'll go all-out for Valentine's Day and make some interesting chocolate designs for my coworkers! Either way, this year was a great success! Happy White Day, everyone!