Japanese Candy II

     Happy Halloween! We just got home from trick or treating and I decided to do a few more candy trials so I didn't steal candy from my kids. lol.
      Big Thunder II:

     The cookie pieces inside reminded me of a mix between Oreos and the "chocolate crunch" pieces in Dairy Queen's ice cream cakes.

      Frankenstein Candy- no English on the package.

    Excuse my oldest son in the background. Apparently the dog costume and seeing himself on a screen was too much to handle.

Something new in the spirit of Halloween

     Our family will "celebrate" Halloween tomorrow. In the spirit of Halloween, and because I don't understand Japanese, I thought I would try something (scary for me) different.  Recently I received a package from Japan that had many different types of candy. Fortunately/unfortunately, most of the text is in Japanese so I have no idea what I'm eating. (Fortunate because I feel fine trying something new. Unfortunate because Tim has food allergies and now I can't share.) So, David and I decided to make a few videos telling what we thought.  Disclaimer: I'm swapping with someone that I trust and intelligently packed. Obviously, be careful about swapping and eating things you get through the mail.
    We tried 3 different candy bars tonight. The first one was Tirol Chocolate.

    This is my first attempt ever recording a video for the blog and it was spontaneous, so I apologize I'm not all dressed up with makeup, wonderful lighting, etc. This is a pretty good representation of just every day me at the end of a long day.

    Overall, this was pretty good. I think Japanese chocolate tastes a little more sweet to me than American chocolate. It also tastes a little creamier.

Next up... Sequioa?

   Very tasty. Kit Kats are one of my favorite candies here in the US. Ironically, that leads us to the candy I saved for last in hopes that it would be delicious.  I forgot to take a picture.

   Well, that was interesting. This led me to research other types of Kit Kats. I knew there were some crazy ones. Check out this article that tells about "weird and wacky flavors" of Kit Kats in Japan. I will have to steal all the American Kit Kats from my children's Halloween treats to purge this taste from my memory.

      This was a lot of fun. I still have 6 pieces to try so I'll save 3 for one day and the last 3 for another.  People reading from other countries- have you ever had an American candy/sweet that you really disliked?
     

Package from Germany

    This past weekend I took a course for professional development. It was about film scoring in the music classroom. I was excited to take it because I knew it would be interesting, but I was apprehensive because I knew it would all be new to me. The course was Friday night and all day Saturday. When I arrived home on Friday I was greeted with this by the kids:

(Not the ink- that was a gift to myself after I received this pen from a student who brought it from Italy to me!)

     The package was from a penpal, Christina in Germany. Her son Tobi writes to Timmy. They sent him a birthday gift and note from Tobi. David even got a nice book in German. (I can read most of it Christina. I will have to look up a few words, but I read better than I write my own ideas!) Then, in addition to my letter, she sent these treats for us:

     These taste like little crackers covered in chocolate. (Like puffed rice a little). Timmy thought they were pretty good and I liked the contrast of the sweet with the ... not sweet.

 Gummy snacks. Haven't tried yet.

 Tea. Can't wait to try the Roobois.

 Black licorice. Traditionally, I don't usually like black licorice, but I like the black licorice from The Netherlands WAY more than here in the US, so I'll probably at least give it a try.

 Chocolate pudding.

 Not quite sure what these are yet. It will be a surprise.

 "Kisses" with hazelnuts. Can't wait to try these too.

We have Werther's here too. Delicious.

 I treated myself to this chocolate bar. it was sweet but light. I liked it a lot. I liked the crunchy bits too.

Cute little erasers. I like the "decision eraser." It has answers like yes, no, maybe, later, etc. in German. I would put it on my desk at work but I know some student would "accidentally" take it.

      I loved being surprised by this sweet treat! Thanks Christina and family!

Package from Finland

    I was so excited to arrive home from work yesterday and find a bright yellow package from my new friend Satu. Another friend in Finland sent me a package in January but it never got here, so I was slightly worried about the arrival of this one. I sent her my package today. I won't tell you the contents in case Satu checks in here and wants to be surprised. Here are the things I received from Finland:

 Package with all kinds of cool stamps. Our post office clerk today was not as accommodating. I got a $19.99 stamp, a few $5, a $2 and then a .15 label.

 Moomins! Do you know about Moomins? I wrote a bit about them in this post a long time ago

 The loot. I forgot to take a picture of the cool card. It was a painting by Risto Toivanen, an artist who has learned to paint with his feet due to being born with cerebral palsy. It was a picture of Tunturiporot- Hill reindeers.  Very cool.

 Tea! I didn't notice before I took the pictures but the "flavor" of the teas are: Go For It (black tea with blueberry muffin flavoring- I'm trying this one in a few minutes!!!!), I Should Know (black tea with lemon), Sweetheart (Black tea with strawberry), Moominmamma's Magic Potion.(Black tea with strawberry and rhubarb)

  Black licorice. I HATE black licorice- except this black licorice apparently. I have gotten this before in another package. I had some and gave the rest to Matt, who loves black licorice. I'm sharing this one too but I had a good amount. The licorice in this is much softer than the US and it is filled with some other... stuff. :) It also doesn't taste like soap or perfume like it does here.

    I think this is mustard.

 Bandaids,

Hallelujah!!!! My favorite :) Strawberry vanilla soup. She sent a whole box plus a few more packets.

 Cookies I think.

 Haven't tried these  yet. I'm guessing gum?

 Also gum?

 Gummy candies

 Also gummies- a little less squishy than our gummy candies.

 Moomin potholder!

 Beautiful paper napkins. Marimekko, Ivana Helsinki and Arabia collections.

More candy- hot licorice lollipops, the striped ones are similar to candy here (white, minty, hard candies with chocolate inside) and the other ones taste a bit like Werther's caramel- but soft. 

   Thanks Satu for your wonderful package. I hope you like mine as much!
    In other news, the sunburns and freckles are appearing. Welcome to baseball season.

Restarting the count!!!!

Outgoing:

     Today I sent out my first letter of 2013. It is to my friend, Jenny, in Germany. It is more like a novel.. ha ha.  I stayed up way too late trying to make a nice looking envelope. Making things visually nice is a real struggle for me so it takes a lot of effort. 

Incoming:

    I received a very yummy package from Oxymord from France. This is part of the Postcrossing Round Robins forum. This was a round devoted to special Christmas/holiday chocolates. This is my first chocolate from France. When I opened the package, my boys said "Whoa!!!!" and immediately wanted to try all of the candy. We have each tried 1 piece so far and it was delicious. I have friends who love Kinder chocolate so I plan to share with them too! Thanks Oxymord! I loved your little Christmas tree card too :)

The 366 Project (2013): 

Sent: 1
Received: 1
 

Ending the week...

Ending the week...

Incoming

   I got a few goodies in the past couple of days. The first was a package from a Postcrossing tag. This came from Austria:

(I have to get more creative in covering all the addresses..lol. Now you know why I'm not an visual arts teacher!)  What's in it, you ask?

CANDY! The tic tacs are a "melon mix."  They taste good, pretty similar to tic tacs we have here. I think I have had a similar tasting flavor here. The Fizzers are very similar to Smarties here, just a little more tart. (They didn't taste fizzy though)  The MAOAM was kind of like Starbursts. The white ones with the blue stripes were a type of chewy caramel- yummy. My favorites were the red striped ones. They were a white, hard candy with chocolate in the middle. The ones with the fruit on them were hard candies that were fruit flavored. I haven't eaten any of the Tutti Frutti ones yet. The boys liked all of them. (Thanks for not sending anything Timmy was allergic to!)

     Then I got some letters:

     The one on the right is a thank you note from a woman from church. (Totally unnecessary!) The one on the left was a welcome to the Letter Writers Alliance. Here's what was inside:

My membership card, a pin and a welcome letter. The Letter Writers Alliance is a a group dedicated to preserving the art of letter writing. You can't seriously be surprised that I would want to be a part of this group. :)  Wait until I start sending mail out on official LWA stationary. If anyone reading this is a LWA member, leave a comment and introduce yourself.
     I also got a letter from Claudine in France.  She also sent me some Ritter Sport chocolate with some berry "yoghurt" filling. Delicious!!!

Outgoing:

    I have quite a few letters that went out, as well as a Postcrossing tag. I have been exploring all kinds of interesting blogs, including people who make some really pretty mail art. Mama Rae's Adventurous Days is one of those blogs. I looked at her mail and thought "What a difference that cute envelope makes!" So, I was inspired to make a few envelopes of my own.  I made these 4 out of a map, 2 tourist brochures and a new Super Mario Brothers advertisement.  Tonight I made some from a calendar of New England. (I apologize if you get one of these. They are very pretty but somewhat lopsided too!)  

      
The 366 Project:
Received: 22
Sent: 53
    I feel really good about being able to sit and write some nice quality letters and not feel totally rushed. I'm hoping I'll get to 15% (of the whole project) received by the end of the month. Come on people- send those letters! I'm hoping I will get 20%-25% of the sent letters done by the end of August. It's a big goal! I still have a TON to go.

Have a nice weekend everyone! Thanks for reading!