This is the end of the school year, so I've been saying a lot of goodbyes to students who either won't have any classes with me next year or are graduating. On Tuesday I received a surprise concert and packet of letters from one of my freshman classes. I don't think I've ever been told "I love you" quite so many times by people who aren't either related to me or my boyfriend. I feel like Corey Haim circa 1988.

But it's not all Tiger Beat covers and Corey Feldman collaborations. My favorite class ever is graduating, a bunch of (mostly) girls who are as friendly, smart and fun as they come. They invited me to their graduation all-you-can-eat yakiniku party, so I got to take some final pictures, eat some grilled meat and tell them, "Minasan, daisuki desu!" (Everyone, I love you!)

* The title of this post comes from a farewell letter given to me today by Creepy Kid.

This candy is an oddly fascinating mix of gothic darkness and sunny cuteness. The name (koakuma means "little devil"), the color scheme (shiny pink and black) and the mascots (a tiny she-devil and a heart with bat wings) all add up to a candy that would make the perfect accessory for the gothic Lolita girls roaming Japan's big-city streets. Even the taste somehow evokes this: the peach flavor tastes young and fresh, while the rose reminds me of dusty funeral parlors. Cheerful and morbid!

The peach-flavored gummy center bulges out of its striped, rose-flavored taffy covering. The rose taffy is soft, not too sticky and a disturbingly bright color. It also leaves a lingering aftertaste of old lady perfume, which is somehow not altogether unpleasant. The peach gummy adds a good chew and cuts through the granny taste.

I'll probably never buy pink glitter fishnet stockings or black lipstick, and I'll probably never buy these again; they're just a little too much for me. Still, it makes me happy to know they are out there, that maybe there are some black-crinoline-clad girls walking around with peach-rose gummies in their purses, breathing their flowery granny breath all over the place.

Saturday was Girls' Day in Japan and I celebrated by making my most elaborate doll to date. This is the Sagi Musume (Heron Maiden) doll, modeled after the main character of a classic Japanese dance about a heron that transforms into a woman and falls in love with a man who does not return her love. It has been most famously performed by the great onnagata (female impersonator) Kabuki actor, Tamasaburo Bando.

This is without a doubt my favorite doll so far. I love the flowers in her hair and the fabric-like softness of her kimono. I also like the white hat, which somehow reminds me of both a wedding veil and a plastic shopping bag. Everything about her seems soft and draping and a little sad.

I like her even more after watching a video of Tamasaburo Bando performing Sagi Musume while wearing the costume this doll is based on. Her long sleeves are like wings, I see now, and the flashes of red at her sleeves and the hem of her kimono are like the bright underfeathers birds flash when shaking off rain or snow. The video is ten minutes long, but worth it, especially for the latter half, when he (she?) closes the umbrella and does a series of eerie, bird-like dances.

Amazake is a sweet, nonalcoholic liquid made by adding kōji (the mold Aspergillus oryzae) to cooked rice and keeping it at 60 degrees Celsius for about 12 hours, a process which converts the starches to sugars. It's the first step in making sake and is markedly less repulsive than the way people used to brew sake in Japan. It's a popular dessert or drink around the New Year's holiday and Girls' Day. Touted for its healthiness, it's also been gaining popularity outside Japan and can be purchased at many health food stores. (Or even made at home using this simple recipe.)

I've never had amazake, but I'm inclined to think Amazake Soft Candy is an accurate representation of its flavor, sweet with an unmistakable sake tang and a faint milky fruitiness. The texture is less sticky than a caramel and harder than a taffy, so you can either chew it as it softens in your mouth or let it melt completely.

I like these. At first it was strange to be eating a candy that tasted like sake, something I associate more with nijikai (post-drinking-party drinking parties) than innocent work-time snacking, but I've since been won over by its refreshing creaminess. I also now want to try making my own amazake, perhaps using the same technique a Japanese family I know uses when illegally brewing their own organic sake -- incubating it under the kotatsu!

This week my friend Meg is visiting from LA, so I am taking a break from candy reviewing to travel around with her and gorge myself on food I love in the name of being a good tour guide. Instead, I present a review from official GJP stalker fan, Gifu Knit Club member and all-around lovely Irish lass, Carol. Enjoy!

Puchi purin choco (Little pudding chocolates)
by Special Guest Candy Journalist, Carol

As a little girl, I was incredibly fond of listening to (eavesdropping on) the chatter of the grown ups around me. One of the things I used to love (over)hearing was my Grandmother telling people definitively that I was a “mini Ollie” when I was born. That I so delighted in overhearing this is somewhat bizarre given that Ollie is a balding fifty-year-old man, and what little girl enjoys being compared to any fifty-year-old man, with or without a full head of hair? But of course, Ollie is not just any fifty-year old man, Ollie is my Dad, my wonderful father, whose patience seems to be housed in a bottomless pool, and the man from whom I inherited my red hair, (which has recently earned me the nickname “carrot sensei”), my impractically pale skin, (which sizzles painfully under the hot Japanese sun [thanks a lot Dad!]) and my freckles (with whom I have a changeable relationship). More importantly though, Ollie is the man from whom I inherited my love of all things custard. It is from my father that I learned the joys of a big bowl of glooopy yellow Bird’s custard, topped with a spoonful of stewed fruit, usually apple or rhubarb. Irish peasant desserts are delicious. (Irish peasant dinners, incidentally, are not). And so, it is my father who I must thank for prepping me for my recently cultivated obsession with the omnipresent Japanese purin.

Purin or pudding, is not a general term for dessert as it might be understood in England, nor is it a term for a hot flour based, boiled cake, as it might be understood in Ireland. In Japan, purin is a delicious custard treat that comes housed in a transparent plastic tub shaped delightfully like a cartoon jelly mould. Usually it will have a delicious layer of runny caramel at the bottom. The best thing about “purin” is the texture/flavour combo. The texture is soft and smooth with just the right consistency, not too thick and not too thin. It is good to smush against the roof of your mouth, where the flavour can be released and wallowed in. The flavour is mild, pleasantly mellow and thankfully not at all sickly sweet, which is always a danger.

Prior to my discovery of Anjali’s wonderful blog, I had found myself in a temporary candy rut. I had developed an unhealthily monogamous relationship with Meiji milk chocolate bars shortly after arriving and ceased to look any further down the vast candy aisle. I was ridiculously unadventurous. Newly illiterate, I had been intimidated by the daunting rows of strange flavours explained in a language I could not speak or read. During this horrifying era, purin, housed as it was in a transparent tub, was a great source of familiar comfort to me.

Months later, when I had emerged with glee from my milk chocolate cocoon, to comprehensively experience the multiple joys of Japanese candy, I came across puchi purin choco. These puchi (meaning mini, little, or a Simpson’s once off character) candies are two tone chocolates shaped like tiny purins and housed in a cardboard box loosely imitating the shape of the plastic tub of the real purin. The box is adorned with multiple cute cartoon puddings cheekily sticking their tongues out to one side. The largest of which has a white exclamation mark printed on the side of its* forehead. Interesting…

To the left of its head, the protagonist purin thinks of a word to describe itself/ the contents of its belly. (???) (More candy cannibalism…it really is omnipresent.) Arriving at a one-word definition, it proclaims itself/its contents as maroyaka (smooth, mellow and with a good body). This is indeed an ample description of the purin which inspired the chocolate, but what of puchi purin choco itself? Is it worthy of such a generous description?

Unfortunately, I would have to say “no”.

Puchi purin choco is disappointing for the following reasons:

1. Unlike Cadbury’s Top Deck, where the upper layer is a distinctive white chocolate and the lower layer a creamy milk chocolate the two tones of puchi purin choco are only visually distinguishable. The custard and caramel layers are indicated by food colouring alone. I had been hoping for a caramel flavoured milk chocolate, and a custard flavoured white chocolate.

2. Unlike the picture on the tub, which promises smooth glistening chocolate, the mini treats on the inside of the box both look and taste just a little chalky.

3. The flavour, although impressively custard-like for chocolate, is just a tad too strong, and tastes more like condensed custard powder than actual custard.

In saying that, they weren’t bad and I managed to polish the lot off! It’s still chocolate, after all!

*I was unwilling to presume as to the gender of purin.

Carol -- teacher of English, knitter of hats, eater of grilled octopus -- lives in Japan. She is also half-leprechaun. (No, seriously.) But rumor has it if you ask her to take you to her pot of gold, she'll instead show you to a pot of pudding.

Sometimes I feel guilty about coming to Japan.

For years I thought I would join the Peace Corps and move to a Third World country, make pennies a day and help people who truly needed it. Instead, I live in a two-bedroom suburban apartment, collect a generous paycheck and shop for tea-flavored lip balm. I have never seen a homeless person in my town. I live across the street from a shiny new mall.

Of course, moving here has undoubtedly changed my life and the lives of some of the students I have taught, but the fact remains -- I have it so easy. So in the spirit of doing something a little more difficult and helping a few of the many people in the world who have next to nothing, I've signed up for a bike trip fundraiser for Building Communities, a JET-affiliated nonprofit which donates money and volunteers to build houses for untouchables in India.

With a group of about twenty other JETs, I will be biking from Honshu (Japan's largest island, where I live) to Shikoku, the smallest of the four main islands. We'll be following the Shimanami Kaido, a 77 km course along the coast, biking the entire distance in one day.

Now here's where you come in. Each participant is collecting sponsorships for the ride, donations that will go directly to Building Communities. (All the travel expenses for the bike ride are being paid for by me.) From the Building Communities website:

Your donations to Building Communities will literally lay the foundations for family homes in the village of Kothasatram / Indiranagar. The villagers live(d) in earthen huts with palm leaf roofs. When the tsunami struck, it literally washed their homes away. They rebuilt their homes as before, but many are still cramped with 4-6 people sleeping directly on dirt floors. Although the tsunami has passed, the villagers are in dire need of strong, sturdy homes to withstand the seasonal threats of cyclones, rain, flooding and the general ravages of nature.

In addition to the warm and fuzzy feeling you'll get knowing you are helping people who really need it, I want to offer something else for your donations as a way of showing my appreciation. So donors of $5 or more will get a special gift!

$5 or more: A Japanese thank-you postcard from me.
$20 or more: The above plus something weird and wonderful (like erasers shaped like cakes, a button depicting an inebriated monkey, etc).
$50 or more: The above plus a package of seasonal or limited-time Japanese candy.
$100 or more: The above plus a vintage kimono in the color of your choice.

Just click the button below or in the sidebar to make a donation, anytime between now and April 15th. If you don't want to receive a gift, just leave the optional shipping information blank and I will donate the amount I would have spent on buying and shipping your gift.

Thanks in advance for your donation! I have a secret dream that all my blog readers (or at least a good portion) will come through with a donation and I'll be able to proudly tell you we raised enough to build ten houses. But even one house would be amazing. Let's enjoy donating!

Aero Matcha-Kinako combines four of my favorite elements: chocolate, green tea, kinako and air. Now that I think about it, I might be able to live on just these four things were I to be abandoned on a small island for any length of time. I would allow Aero-chan, the kimono-clad toy poodle that serves as Aero's mascot, to be present, but only if she did tea ceremony for me and served me sweets.

I would not want Aero Matcha-Kinako to be among those sweets.

It's not that this candy is terrible -- the chocolate coating is milky and sweet, the center tastes mildly of matcha -- but I expect big things from any candy that incorporates kinako and even bigger from one that throws matcha into the mix. I want taste explosions! Mellow kinako nuttiness cut with the fresh, green taste of matcha and rounded out with a thin layer of milk chocolate. Doesn't that sound good? Don't you wish Aero Matcha-Kinako tasted like that? ...Yeah, me too.

I taste no kinako whatsoever in this candy. If Aero-chan knew me at all, she would know I find false kinako advertising to be the gravest of betrayals.

Aero is originally a UK candy creation, but as with KitKat, Nestlé releases special, Japan-only limited edition flavors. (A Peach flavor has been released alongside Matcha-Kinako.) I fear I may be as underwhelmed by the range of novelty Aero flavors as I am with KitKats. The appeal of Aero is apparently its unique texture, the result of a top-secret method which disperses air bubbles throughout the chocolate, transforming it into something light and almost chewy. Its slogan in the English-speaking world is "Have you felt the bubbles melt?" which sounds very Japanese-style English to me. Maybe that's why it is popular here.

For some amusing puzzlement, I recommend checking out the Aero Land website, which features pictures of a poodle which is apparently the actual Aero-chan. She is not wearing a kimono though. I have been disappointed by Aero once again.

I'm a little slow -- Meg left over a week ago, but I still wanted to document two memorable encounters during her visit.

The Tobu Renaissance Hotel Does In Fact Exist

On our second night in Tokyo, we emerge from the subterranean walkway, flushed and giggly from an evening of pretty cocktails at the Park Hyatt and red wine downed standing up at a lively tapas bar, and find ourselves at an unfamiliar corner. I pull out the creased map of the neighborhood we picked up at the hotel, embarrassingly tourist-centric but -- with its use of landmarks like "The Gap" and "Kentucky Fried Chicken" instead of street names and numbers -- undeniably helpful.

We both peer at the map. "Um..." I say, looking around. "There's a bank. Is it on the map?" It is not. We look around for something brightly-lit, franchised, recognizable. A man smoking a cigarette nearby watches us and, when we return to the map, walks over.

"Where are you going?" he asks in Japanese.

I show him on the map. "Tobu Renaissance Hotel. Tobu Hoteru." The map is all in English and I have doubts about whether he can quickly grasp where we want to go.

"Tobu Hoteru? Tobu Hoteru!? ...There is no Tobu Hotel!" he says, sounding surprised we even asked.

"There is!" I protest. I want to tell him our belongings are currently residing on the eighth floor of this very existent hotel, but there's no way I could be that eloquent in Japanese, so instead I point to the street we need to find on the map and ask him where it is.

"Walk this way, then turn right. Then it's waaaaay down the street." He straightens up, puts out his cigarette. "I'm going that way. I can show you."

I look at Meg. "He's going to show us the way." Now, if we were in a big city in the U.S., this would be the point where Meg and I would exchange looks and simultaneously start talking about that thing we have to do before we get back, that thing (what was it again?) we have to do from that brightly-lit convenience store over there, and really there's no need for him to wait around for us. But we are in Japan. Meg and I don't even exchange looks.

As we walk briskly in the winter night air, he asks where we are from. "America," I say. "But I live in Ogaki, in Gifu-ken."

"Gifu-ken? Gifu-ken!?" He is incredulous, makes it sound like I have just told him I live deep within the Earth's core. Or in the Tobu Renaissance Hotel.

By the time I have asked him about his job and completely not understood the answer (something about important people), asked him if he can speak English and heard his answer ("I. Can't. Speak. English," he says in careful English), we are at the corner. "I'm going this way," he says, then points in the opposite direction. "You're going that way. The hotel is waaaay down there."

If we were in a big city in the U.S., this would be the point where he would ask us out for a drink or for my cell phone number and we would have to awkwardly bring up that thing again or I would have to spend the next two weeks not answering my phone whenever an unfamiliar number called -- but we aren't and he doesn't. We thank him in Japanese and I bow and he just says, "Good-bye," waving a little awkwardly, before we part.

Waaaay down there turns out to be about three blocks. "Tobu Hotel!?" I say to Meg as it comes into view. "Gifu-ken!?" she replies. It will become a familiar refrain for the rest of her visit.

We Are the Strangers Your Mom Told You Not to Talk To

Meg confides in me her obsession with the adorable children of Japan and I in turn reveal my secret plan to kidnap a Japanese baby before I leave the country. From then on, whenever we spot a particularly cute child we plot ways to distract the mother and make off with the stroller. I think we are both at least 50% serious.

Back in Ogaki, we are biking back to my apartment one afternoon when I see a small group of unchaperoned hat-clad elementary school students slowly walking toward us. I can't remember which of us suggests I ask them if Meg can take a picture, but I do.

"Okay!" they yell and immediately come together in picture-taking formation, crouching, making faces and flashing smiles. Meg snaps pictures like mad. It is only when she is finished that they think to ask why she is taking pictures of them.

"She's American," I say. They seem to accept this as a reasonable answer. We say our goodbyes and bike on. A couple minutes later, we spot another group approaching. I stop them, too.

"No way!" they yell and two of them run away, fast. One little girl says she'll do it, but everyone she asks to join her says no. A few kids ask us why Meg wants to take their picture.

"She's American," I say. Then, because these kids seem a little more street-smart than the last bunch, I add, "She's on a trip to Japan."

Two boys hoot, "A trip to Japan!" as if I've just said she's going on a holiday to the supermarket. They shake their heads. "A trip to Japan..."

"What is she going to do with the pictures?" a tall boy asks.

"Show them to her family and friends when she goes back," I say. They look at me like I'm crazy. A confused mutter breaks out. Finally, one boy says, "Oh, I get it! She's going to show them and say, 'This is from my trip to Japan.'" I tell him he's right. Apparently, this is a baffling concept.

They still don't want to do it.

The little girl who had agreed to be in a picture eyes Meg's bicycle. "How did she get here from America?" she asks. "Did she come BY BICYCLE?" Her eyes widen at the thought, but then the other kids start laughing and someone yells, "She came by plane, not bicycle!"

The little girl looks defiant. "Well, how does she have a bicycle then? Whose bicycle is it?"

"It's mine," I say. "She's borrowing it." The little girl looks deflated and an awkward silence follows. I look at Meg. Here we are, two adult strangers on bicycles trying to convince a bunch of little kids to let us take pictures of them. We are creepy.

It's time to go. "Okay, bye-bye!" we say and start to bike away. "Wait!" I hear the little girl yell, but we wave and pedal away, leaving the kids to ponder why anyone in their right mind would take a trip to Japan and whether it is in fact possible to ride a bicycle to the other side of the world.

As for Meg and me, we resolve to stop taking pictures of unsupervised children. But I'm still going to kidnap that baby one of these days.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Chocoball. Although I spent months secretly distrusting Kyoro-chan, Chocoball's beaky mascot, I quickly came to appreciate her straightforward combination of flavorful chocolate around a crunchy biscuit center. Chocoball is so straightforward, in fact, I rarely find a flavor strange or enticing enough to write a whole review about it. Thank god for the Japanese obsession with corn.

Corn shows up in the most unlikely places -- on pizza, in sushi, under soft loops of mayonnaise -- making it an easy target for foreigners who like to complain about how weird and gross and wrong the marriage of Japanese and Western food can be. I'm sometimes one of those people, especially when it comes to hamburger sushi, but the truth is: I really love corn. Not so much high-fructose corn syrup or cornstarch or any of the myriad of corn-based products which don't actually taste like corn but help eat away at the American corn glut, I mean actual ears of corn, roasted and salted, or corn tortillas or even canned niblets, eaten cold with a big spoon (a childhood favorite).

So I was kind of looking forward to trying Sweet Corn Chocoball. Don't tell anyone I told you that.

If you, like me and 99% percent of the Japanese population, enjoy corn in its gustable form and believe it can be successfully added to any number of dishes, you will like Sweet Corn Chocoball. The mildly corn-flavored white chocolate coating covers a crunchy biscuit center somewhat like a compressed, sweetened corn chip. It leaves a nice corn aftertaste, which may sound disgusting if you are not a fellow corn appreciator, but I assure you is quite pleasant. I like how each piece is reminiscent of a very smooth and shiny corn niblet. I also like the word "niblet."

Corn has been sadly ignored in the world of desserts and Sweet Corn Chocoball seems to point toward a whole New World of a-maize-ing treats! (Sorry, Kyoro-chan stipulated I had to be corn-y at least once in this review...sorry again.) I mean, it wouldn't be so difficult to make the leap from cornbread to corn cupcakes -- perhaps topped with a big dollop of mayonnaise?

In non-candy news, I want to thank everyone who has donated thus far to my bike ride to benefit untouchables in India. The total donated so far is $919! I am amazed at your generosity. Thank you so much!