My Sweet Valentine

Well I am pleased to say that I spent a lovely Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend this year. I’m feeling like nothing can get me down. Before I tell you about my day, let me tell you a little bit about Valentine’s Day in Japan.

When you picture a typical American style Valentine’s Day, it usually consists of a couple dressing up, going on a nice dinner date to a fine restaurant, exchanging gifts like chocolate and flowers, and ending with a romantic and possibly sexy night together in bed. *wink wink*Actually, that’s basically what Christmas Eve is in Japan. Valentine’s Day in Japan is a bit different. It’s a day where girls confess their love to boys via chocolate. Boys don’t do anything on this day, and there are no dates or gifts exchanged.

 There are three kinds of chocolate, honmei-choco, tomo-choco, and ­giri-choco. Honmei-choco ­is what girls give to the boy who they love. Girlfriends give it to their boyfriends, wives give it to their husbands, and girls will give it to their crush as a way to confess their love. Tomo-choco is what girls give to their girl friends. It’s basically a way for girls to give and receive chocolate if they don’t have a lover to give it to. Lastly, giri-choco (or obligation chocolate) is what girls give to the boys they are indebted to such as their boss, coworkers, or anyone who has helped them recently in some way. Sometimes women make jokes about giving their husbands or boyfriends giri-choco instead of honmei-choco. I made the same joke to my boyfriend when I handed him chocolate this year. He asked, “Is this honmei-choco­?” to which I laughed and replied, “No, it’s giri-choco­.” He was just like, “OH, I see how it is…” Haha! Of course I said, “Just kidding! Just kidding! It’s honmei-choco!!”

Perhaps you are thinking, “Dang, Valentine’s Day in Japan sucks for girls. They have to do everything and the boys do nothing.” Well, that’s true, but exactly one month later on March 14^th, there is White Day. It’s a day for boys to give chocolate to girls. It’s slightly different though. Although I’m sure some boys may use this day to confess their love to girls via chocolate, it’s more so a day where boys return the favor of chocolate to girls. So basically, any boy who received chocolate on Valentine’s Day must give chocolate back to the girl they received it from. I always give a lot of giri-choco­ to my coworkers because I want to get a lot of chocolate back on White Day haha!

One thing that is big here in Japan is “making” your own chocolate. When I say “make,” I don’t actually mean to make chocolate from scratch with like cocoa beans. What Japanese people do is buy chocolate, melt it down, and pour it into small tins and such and then decorate it with sprinkles and other little decorations. Making other bite-size chocolate desserts is common too such as truffles, baby chocolate-filled pie crusts, chocolate rice crispies, and so on. This year I decided to make chocolate for the first time since I have a boyfriend and wanted to show him I care. Honmei-choco can be homemade or store bought, but obviously it means more if you make it yourself. I had a lot of fun doing it, and made it not only for my boyfriend, but for my coworkers, bosses, tea ceremony classmates, etc. It’s not hard to do at all! Just be careful not to let the boiling water get into your chocolate, or it will be ruined. Learned that the hard way.

Lining ups all the little tins and tras and getting ready to
melt the chocolate.

Sprinkles!

Here's a finished batch of some white chocolate ones.

This was my box full of chocolate for Shinya.

So now for my Valentine’s Day date. We kind of mixed Japanese and American Valentine’s Day traditions. We went on a date, but instead of exchanging gifts, I have him chocolate. Unfortunately, Shinya had to work late that day even though it was a Saturday. Since we didn’t know what time he would get off, we couldn’t make a dinner reservation. However, we picked out a nice looking Italian restaurant to try. He got off at about 7pm (he usually only has to work until 3:30pm on Saturdays…poor guy), so I went to meet him downtown instead of having him come home first and then going together. I had spent like two to three hours getting beautiful. I shaved, trimmed my eyebrows and nails, did my hair and makeup nicely, and wore a black lace dress (and my new black lace bra hehe! ;) I was so excited to find that I can actually find bras in my size in Japan recently, but that’s a whole other story). Shinya made me feel really happy and showed me he cares by preparing in advance by bringing his new watch I got him for his birthday, the sweater I got him as a souvenir in Taiwan, and his pair ring to work. That way, if he had to work late, which he did, he could still wear everything on the date. It meant a lot to me. *Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of us on Valentine’s Day. I wish I did!

Coincidentally, while riding the train downtown, he happened to enter the same train car as me and surprised me by sitting down next to me! I thought that was funny. When we got to the Italian restaurant, we found out that it was booked for the night which was a little disappointing, but I was prepared for that to happen since we didn’t have a reservation. We decided we would try going back a different time. So we walked a little bit and came across this really nice looking izakaya called わたしん家 (Watashinchi, My House). It doesn’t seem to have its own webpage, but if you simply Google the name in Japanese, it will show up on lots of websites like gnavi, hotpepper, and tabelog. I don’t think it’s a chain izakaya. When you walk in, at first you must walk down a long, dimly lit, hall which seemed kind of eerie, but actually the whole place was dimly lit and had a fancy feel to it. We were guided up narrow steps to our table which was our own private little room! It turns out that all the tables are in private little rooms. I was so surprised and happy! We even had a door we could close, so we could feel completely alone together. It was perfect and romantic! You could order everything on a screen and just press a button when you needed the staff. It turned out to be even better than going to the Italian restaurant. They even had pizza and pasta on the menu, which we ordered along with a lot of other stuff like sashimi, kimchi fried rice, fish, and spicy cucumbers. We were sooo full! They had a lot of fun, different alcoholic drinks too. I got this one drink that was basically like apple champagne but like jellified. I had no idea that it was going to be kind of jelly-ish when I ordered it, but it was a fun surprise. We leisurely spent two hours in our private little room enjoying time together.

I got this picture from the internet, but this is what
our room looked like.

After dinner, we decided to go to a bar we hadn’t been to in a long time. It’s a very special bar to us because it’s the bar we went to together on the night Shinya and I started dating. It was the first time for both of us to go there, so it’s kind of like our special bar. It’s a place called Shotbar Den, and it’s very small and classy. I think there are just six chairs at the bar, and that’s it. There is always jazz music playing and the décor is jazz themed. It’s a little pricier because the alcohol is good quality, and you get the most deliciously homemade seasoned peanuts as part of the service charge. We both drank two kinds of rum on the rocks that the bar master had specifically stocked for us because it’s our favorite. We spent time there quietly reminiscing about all the past dates and fun times we’ve had together. It was perfect.

Shinya began to get sleepy since it was getting late, and he had worked all day, so we decided to head home around 11pm. He slept with his head on my shoulder the whole train ride home. When we got back to our town, Shinya came to my apartment and slept over for the first time in like a month. It was so nice to sleep in his arms again. I made him breakfast in the morning: eggs, toast, strawberries, and coffee. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect Valentine’s Day. When it came time for him to head home, I made him come with me to a nearby flower shop, so I could pick out some Valentine’s Day flowers for his mother and send them home with him. I still haven’t met her yet, but I’m trying to win brownie points. Apparently she was very happy and said she had never received flowers before!  Who rocks? I rock! Haha! Anyway, I hope you all had a nice holiday as well and enjoyed reading!