11/11 is for Pepero Day

About a month ago, my bakery friend JiHee explained to me the ins and outs of Korean holidays as she pointed to dates on a small flip-calendar She told me about their variation of Valentine's Day, during which girls buy gifts for their love interests. She told me about White Day in March, when the guys then return the love tokens to the girls. Then later that month, Koreans celebrate Black Day to recognize all of the angry people who didn't receive gifts on either day. The wallflowers eat jajangmyeon--a Chinese noodle dish with a black-colored sauce--to ease the pain of their lonely hearts. It's a good thing the bakery was vacant because I laughed pretty loudly at this one.

Koreans like to have something to celebrate every month, she said, flipping through the summer months, through independence day in August and Chusok in October. She put her finger on the eleventh of November and told me to guess the meaning of the date. She waited with expectant eyes, clearly energized by our conversation, but I gave her a blank stare.

"I don't know," I said. She held up two pointer fingers side-by-side to give me an obvious clue, but I had nothing.

"It's Pepero Day!" she exclaimed. I offered her no reaction.

"What's pepero?" I wanted to know. She seemed floored that I didn't know about pepero.

Well, pepero is like a long, skinny bread-like cracker, dipped in chocolate. It's a little bit like those chocolate-covered pretzel sticks sold during Christmas, but the cracker isn't salty.

There's generic pepero that's sold in small red boxes. The green boxes have pepero with almond pieces. There's "real" pepero that is sold at the bakery or in the baked goods section of a grocery store. Nude pepero, yes, nude, is cracker on the outside and chocolate on the inside. The markets create full center displays from their pepero stock on pepero day and the eve prior. Then on November 11th, customers buy pepero for their significant other, friends, kids, parents, teachers, and even their students. The holiday is a bit commercial, obviously. Here's a picture of my pepero stash from the day:

Anyway, it's a bit rare for me to blog two days in a row, but I had a pretty good Pepero Day. I met Jihey in downtown Daegu before work. Tomorrow is the Korean SAT, so school dismissed early, and Jihey promised to assist me with a much-needed haircut. We met at the train station and went out for lunch at a place that was clearly the high school student hangout. (Nearly every person in the room was dressed in uniform!)

We went to a snazzy-looking hair shop, and I got a really great hair cut for only 8 bucks! I was pretty nervous about it because Aunt Cathy told me about someone she knew who had a haircut nightmare in South Korea, but I was very impressed with this one. The stylist cut it dry, as opposed to washing it like in the states, but she styled it really nice afterward. Didn't even feel the need to go home and restyle it to my liking!

After the haircut, we went to Madeline Cafe on Jihey's recommendation, where you can get a free piece of cake with the purchase of a coffee drink. Well, that free piece of cake evidently also includes an array of other pastries, none of which I could put down after the omelet rice and chicken cutlet we ate for lunch, and the free slice of cappuccino cake. Jihey finished it off, though! Where does she put it? I'd like to know.

More than anything, the outing was another great chance to chat. She asked me about holidays in the states, and I was surprised to realize how silly I felt describing our customs for St. Patrick's Day.