Pehhhhh-Peh-Ro!... Peh-Peh-Ro, Peh-Peh-Ro, Peh-Peh-Ro, Peh-Peh-Ro... Pehhhhh-Peh-Ro!!

Back home it's Remembrance Day, a day to appreciate all of the effort that so many brave men and women have made over the years in the name of their country. A day to thank all of the people that were forced to handle situations that most of us can't even imagine. It's a day that means a lot to us as Shayne's Step-Grandfather and other family members are World War II veterans and my own father spent his entire life in the armed forces. We try to make this blog as lighthearted as possible but days like today really put our own lives into perspective. It's easy to take for granted that most of us has been fortunate enough never to have had to fight in a war.

Although it's doubtful that any member of the Canadian Armed Forces or actual war veterans will read this post, we would like to thank all of them for everything they have done. It's a scary thought to wonder if we would be able to follow in their footsteps if need be.


But now back to regularly scheduled Shayneandjo.com programming...

November 11th is slightly different in Korea. Instead of somber ceremonies and reflections, on this day Koreans give each other Pepero (pronounced peh-peh-ro). Many of you may know of a similar Japanese candy phenomenon called Pocky. Well, Pepero is Pocky's slower younger cousin from Korea. For those of you unfamiliar with either product, Pepero is a chocolate-covered cookie stick. A good idea in theory, but while Pocky has a sweet, crunchy cookie stick with a thick layer of chocolate, Pepero's cookie stick tastes more like a bread stick and the chocolate is paper-thin.

Regardless of how top-notch Pepero is, the fact is we got a whack-load of it on Friday (the last school day before the official Pepero Day on November 11th). Not all of the students were so generous, but the nicer ones (mainly the girls) happily handed us over-sized Pepero stick after over-sized Pepero stick, and we as happily accepted. To tell the truth, it was a bit of a competition to see which of us got the most.


As you can see from the above photo we did quite well. Both of us got about the same amount, so no winner this time. All that was left after counting our respective piles was to dig in.

And dig in we did. No, we didn't eat our way through all the packages, but we got pretty close. In our defense, we had to discard a lot of it after one bite, as there are many brands and varieties of the Pepero snack, and some of them quite disgusting: of note, the ones that tasted like chemicals, and the big ones in the pink tartan packages that used rice cake instead of cookie for the stick.

(Here's Shayne holding examples of both the big and small varieties of Pepero.)

But before you start thinking that our students broke the bank buying Pepero sticks for us, think again. The ones we got were relatively cheap - it was the few girls with boyfriends at the academy that really blew us away. Several of the girls got Pepero gift packs the size of shoe boxes, and one got a stick (no joke) the size of a giant loaf of French bread, covered in chocolate and sprinkles. That last one set the poor boyfriend back about 15,000 Won ($15).

Well, that's just about all I can say about Pepero Day. Well, except for that one thing that may be on all of your minds: do Koreans really celebrate a day where they purchase a specific brand of candy in abundance and give it to all their friends and family? Yes, yes they do. And that's a closer if I ever saw one.

Jo