Happy Pepero Day!

Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about some of the candy I've been addicted to? Well, shortly afterwards I learned of what has become my new favorite holiday - Pepero Day. I've never seen anything like it... sure at home we have Valentine's Day (a day made up by the greeting card companies to sell more cards and chocolate while discriminating against half the population) but I've never seen a day dedicated to one brand of candy. It'd be like having a day dedicated to Twix bars at home or something.

Anyway, every November 11th while America is celebrating its fallen heroes on Veteran's Day, South Korea is celebrating it's love for chocolate covered cookie sticks on Pepero Day. Why November 11th? Well, quite easily because Pepero are long sticks of chocolate - so 11/11 looks like the chocolate. Everything is decorated kind of like Valentine's Day - red, pink, white, and the boxes are arranged in hearts and the packaging all says "We Love You on Pepero Day!"

Friday was a fun day because all of the kids came into school with all type of Pepero - and some were tiny and I even got one that was a foot long from one of my favorite students.

As I was walking around Suji and even Seoul on Thursday/Friday/Saturday there were HUGE displays outside of most convenience stores and even in Lotte Mart there was a gigantic area dedicated to it. This is an example outside of the GS25 that I go to everyday on my lunch break:



Either way, it was a very odd random little holiday and it was a pretty big deal to the kids. Either way, I definitely had my fair share of the stuff, and do not look forward to the day when I can't walk into any convenience store and buy it for 70 cents.