Apr 28th 2016 | One of These Candies is an Excellent Floater.🍬🍬
This month's shipment was a box containing three items. Or it was until my cat knocked the box I was using as reference for writing this email into a pot of water. The contents featured were orange flavored chews, milk chocolate puffs and matcha sticks.
Natsu Mikan, Strawberry and Green Apple Chews
Mikan (orange) ichigo (strawberry) and ao ringu (green apple) flavored chews! These cute little bites comes in travel sized containers. They dissolve pretty quickly in our mouth, exploding in authentic Japanese fruity flavors. You can try sharing them with your friends and family, but then they'll just get eaten quicker, and who wants that? At least yours aren't soggy, unlike mine that ended up in a watery grave thanks to my feline "friend."
Fluffy Milk Chocolate
This may very well be the fluffiest candy I have ever eaten. You'll immediately think popcorn, but the texture in way softer than popcorn. It's almost like cotton! The milk chocolate is very strong and I was almost taken back. The most surprising part for me was that this candy survived my cats splash attack.
Toppo Matcha Sticks
When it comes to stick candy in Japan, two brands come to mind: Pocky and Toppo. While Pocky flavors tend to be on the outside of the pretzel stick, Toppo packs its flavor on the inside, as you'll find with this matcha flavored crispy pretzel stick. Matcha is green tea, and while popular in Japan, it's definitely an acquired taste because of its bitter sweet taste. It's even more an acquired taste when your stupid cat (Bemmu note: come on he isn't that bad!) soaks it in water.
My cat is a jerk. Every month Bemmu sends me a box of candy to write about, and ever since I adopted this cat, I've had to hide the box (or any food really) because she will destroy it. She doesn't even eat it. She just wants to suck the joy out of my life. Not even my bunnies put up with her. She is the KY of the apartment. For those not in the know, KY is Japanese slang for a socially awkward person, or cat. Seriously. No one likes you, Brienne.
We have an exceptional amount of free time, a whole month. In Europe it isn't that unusual to spend a month in the summer to travel somewhere, but in Japan it's almost unbelievably luxurious.
Well, it's one month before my wife's work at a Japanese company starts again before her maternity leave ends, so we decided to tour Europe a bit. With a baby. So that's been a bit of a challenge.
The baby likes to shout a lot. Not cry, just make a lot of loud nonsensical sounds at passersby, who then look at us. Planes, restaurants and ferries too of course. While carrying a 10kg loudspeaker everywhere adds some challenge, so far it's been doable.
We'll do Netherlands, with possibly daytrips to anywhere accessible by train (Paris or Brussels maybe). In Amsterdam we also had a Candy Japan meetup where we are sushi with local subscribers. Tomorrow TheNextWeb conference starts.