I Want CANDY!

LJ asked me to blog all the curious Japanese candy that we seem to have here. this is some, there are more that we eat, but sadly we didn't have any in the house for me to take a picture of.

Top are 4 different soda candies, they are hard candies that fizz in your mouth as you eat them kinda the way soda does as you drink it. And a Hello Kitty candy, it's cute and girly, and star shaped, and grape!

Next are 2 different kinds of pressed sugar candies (my DH's preferred kind of candy). The one on the left is whistle candy, it's shaped like a jolly rancher, but when you hold it in your lips/teeth and blow thru the hole in the center it whistles! my kids love these, and as long as we're not in the car I'm OK with them too. On the right are some other lil bits that were in DD#2's stocking from Santa, they are extremely fruity for such lil bits of sugar. And the package is super cute.

Third is MY fav, they're these grape taffy with soda fizz powder in the middle. This candy also comes in "cola flavor" but I don't care for that, and I've heard a rumor that it comes in pineapple, but I've never seen it. I get these puppies 4 for 100yen (at the equivalent of the dollar store here).

Lastly there are 2 pieces of gum, it's about the same amount in a stick but in a different shape, but in the most awesome package EVER! According to the kids anyway. One is in Mario, and the other in Poke Mon (or Pocket Monster, as they call them over here). These were in the big kids stockings also.

Not pictured but FANTASTIC are these little packages of cotton candy with pop rocks in that turn into gum. I can't remember where we got those, the kids sure had fun with it tho! Also they get really fancy with some of their things, at the 100 yen shop, things you'd usually only see at the higher end candy stores in the states. Santa brought the kids some lolly pops that actually were sculpted fruits.

Most of our candy buying happens in the 100 Yen shops as you can get a small bag (10 pieces) for 100yen, or 4 large pieces, or the gum/pressed candy in strips with multiple packages of each. It's a good place to try out interesting looking candy, somethings are about what you'd expect and are very close to what Americans like, but on occasion you just get oddities. And the chocolates don't seem to be as sweet as American style chocolates, which I'm a fan of. I'll keep my eye out for some of these next time we head out. I'll also try to do a post of some of the savory/salty snacks that we like to get here too.