Eric and Stephanie's Korean Adventure: Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! Yes we are still that cheesy couple that enjoys the excuse of celebrating Valentine's Day, though we did give up on going out to dinner on the exact day a couple years ago. In Korea Valentine's Day is celebrated a bit differently. For one thing it's pretty much strictly celebrated by couples. There are no valentine parties at school or little boxes of valentine cards for kids to hand out.
Also, if you go out to a nice restaurant on Valentine's Day you will pay close to double the regular price. Actually, Valentine's Day is celebrated by the girl buying the guy chocolate for Valentine's Day. Not the other way around. There is another holiday, White Day, on March 14 which is the exact opposite of Valentine's Day. On White Day the guy buys the girl flowers, chocolate, etc. I thought America was the only country that liked an excuse for cheesy, commercialized holidays but I guess Korea has a couple on a small scale as well. Anyway, Eric loved the idea of me having to give him chocolate and him not having to return the favor until a month later. He seemed pretty serious to me. Last night I decided to make a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting since they are his favorite (and sounded delicious to me too!). They turned out pretty amazing we both thought, so I think I will have to make them again! And I guess he wasn't serious about the whole White Day thing because he still managed to surprise me with flowers and chocolate (not easy to do since we live and work together!), going completely against the Korean tradition! I also picked up some candy for the kids at work even though they don't know much about Valentine's Day they got chocolate and that's all they care about!