Current mood:	full
Current music:	"Come Back to Me" Utada
Entry tags:	holidays, japan, work

White Day: The Swaggening
I apparently forgot to mention this, but last month, I was kinda stressed from work and had a day off on Feb. 11th, so I decided to make red velvet cupcakes for Valentine's Day. I'm really not a domestic type, but I'm Virgo enough that things like cleaning and baking relax me. They were slight failures (I don't have a mixer, so the frosting ended up with small lumps of cream cheese that I couldn't quite smooth out, and I didn't put enough food coloring in (liquid food coloring is nearly impossible to find in Japan, so I just added powdered red color until the batter looked vaguely bloody), so I ended up making plain chocolate cupcakes instead of red velvet). Still, they turned out well. (I assume. I made ALMOST enough for everyone in the company, male and female, but I was two cupcakes short, so I rather apologetically informed my fellow translator Horinouchi-san that neither of us were getting cake. She didn't seem to mind, but I was honestly a big upset. lol)

Anyway, today (tomorrow, technically, but it's a Saturday) is White Day, so I ended up getting swag from the guys at the office: a bag of cookies, four small chocolates (from 2 different co-workers), a little box of 4 truffles, a little box of chocolates (which my co-worker hysterically hid in a work envelope in order to hide from prying eyes), and apparently some cake from the guys in the Engineering department. \(^o^)/ Hurray! I am the winner!



(No, actually to be entirely honest, it's pretty embarrassing. I wanted to bake because I was bored and stressed; Valentine's day was really just an excuse and a good way to make sure that I didn't scarf a sheet cake by myself. Next year, I'm pooling my money with the other women to buy chocolates. If I want to bake, I'll make sure to do it on a non-reciprical-gift-giving holiday.)

ETA: Once I got home, I realized that I was slightly wrong... my hysterical coworker gave me a box of carmel cookie thingies, not chocolates (suggesting that he has better taste than I ever assumed), and the cake from the Engineering guys turned out to be 6 petit-fours that look AWESOME.



Yes, they're all strawberry themed, and although you can't tell from this angle, the middle one on the left is shaped like a swan. I AM GOING TO GET SO FAT AND HAPPY OVER THIS WEEKEND. I CHANGED MY MIND AGAIN. SCREW YOU, SHAME! I LOVE YOU, WHITE DAY.