My birthday was celebrated with my favorite people in Japan at Warung Phuan, my favorite Thai restaurant in Nagoya. It's run by the nicest couple and the place is so small and cozy that I always feel like I'm hanging out in a comfortable living room somewhere rather than at a restaurant. But what's with the scary picture above, you ask? It's a bottle of snake-infused liquor I was strongly discouraged from allowed to taste. It tasted...really horrible. But the lizard liquor and the ants were okay!

(Note to anyone living in the Nagoya area and considering this restaurant: these are not usual menu items. The rest of their food is totally normal and really tasty-- especially the som tam!)

And as a birthday gift to myself, I made another skirt from Sew What Skirts, this time a drawstring seersucker number with an appliquéd anchor. Actually, it was less of a gift to myself and more a necessary way to cut down on the amount of fabric I'll have to mail back when I move. Although I haven't yet perfected my ideal skirt pattern and buttonholes and I don't seem to agree, I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.

Flush with the success of last week's Pino Mint adventure and inspired by Roboppy's call to popsicle arms, I decided to pick up this week's candy from the frozen treats aisle again. I was slightly at a loss because my favorite Japanese popsicle was actually the melon one pictured in the aforementioned popsicle post (the seeds are chocolate chips!) and I didn't really see anything equally appealing in the freezer. But my love of sweet beans and matcha pulled me toward Meiji's Uji-kintoki popsicles, which are based on a popular kakigori (shaved ice) flavored with matcha and topped with azuki beans and sweetened condensed milk. (Does the name sound familiar? Perhaps it's because I reviewed Uji-kintoki KitKats last year.)

And...wow.

It's times like these, eating a popsicle with a creamy cap of frozen sweetened condensed milk, smooth as gelato, covering crunchy matcha-flavored ice crystals studded with chewy sweet beans, that I sort of want to cry and tell Japan I love it so much I want to marry it. This is the greatest popsicle I have ever eaten. The textures, people, the textures! At first it was so strange, reaching the bumpy, icy center -- popsicles aren't crunchy -- but it was immediately satisfying, chewing through the granita-like ice and the occasional nuggets of bean. And maybe the bean sounds strange too, but the contrast between the melting ice and the chilled bean skin was, as unlikely as it may seem, perfect.

Sweet, chilled bean skin is delicious! Tell your friends.

This feels like a very grown-up popsicle, the kind of thing you could offer at the close of a summer dinner party and still feel glamorously Gourmet-worthy. And if any of your guests refuse to eat crunchy ice crystals or sweet beans in their popsicles, well, please wrap up the extra and send it along to me.

This is my second-to-last Friday in Japan. In a little over a week, I'll be heading to Thailand for two weeks before returning to Los Angeles, land of taco trucks, Thai Elvis and the only person I know worthy of a hand-embroidered Star Wars pillow. What does this mean for the future of Japanese Candy Friday? Initially I thought I would continue posting weekly candy reviews, but expand the focus to include any kind of foreign candy, scouring L.A.'s ethnic markets for crazy treats. I realized it wouldn't be the same, though. The magic of Japanese Candy Friday for me is the Japanese-ness of the candy -- the cute, cannibalizing characters, the unique flavors and textures, the bizarre names -- and what each candy says about the culture that produced it.

But although L.A. has an admirable number of Asian markets, my access to Japanese candy just won't be what it is here. So, I thought, why not enlist the help of those with an unlimited choice of Japanese and other Asian candy and create a group blog dedicated to all that is weird and Asian and candy? The name is has been chosen (We Love Squid Candy), the domain has been purchased (welovesquidcandy.com), the logo is in the works (thanks, Robert) and now all I need is you. Or maybe you. Do you live in a place with easy access to a wide variety of Asian candy (preferably, but not necessarily, in an Asian country)? Are you kind of weirdly obsessed with Asian sweets? Can you write an interesting candy review once a week? If this is you, please email me with the following information: your name, where you live, a bit about you and why you love Asian candy. Emails sent before next Sunday, July 22 at noon JST will get an immediate response with a writing assignment if it seems like you'd be a good fit. If you send an email after that, I most likely won't be able to respond until I'm back in the U.S.

Now, moving on to this week's candy! There is a theme. It is squid. To be totally honest with you, I don't actually LOVE squid candy, but I do love the idea of its existence and I occasionally love the taste. However, welovetheideaandsometimesthetasteofsquidcandy.com just doesn't roll off the tongue, does it?

These two sweet squid treats can best be described as squid Fruit Roll-Ups, except without the fruit. And with the addition of some intense flavors and some sort of oozing juice I was afraid would drip down the front of my shirt while I ate them. Not very pleasant -- but surprisingly, not inedible. The mentaiko flavor is sprinkled with sesame seeds and tastes vaguely of pepperoni. Your opinion of the kimchi flavor will depend on your relationship with stinky, spicy, pickled cabbage. Fans will enjoy its stinky spiciness. But beware the oozing juice.

Squid somen is dried squid cut into thin strips resembling somen noodles. Actually, while you're eating them, you're less likely to think, "Hm. Somen noodles," and more like to recall that dried-out rubber band you found wrapped around the Spanish flashcards you made five years ago. But if you don't mind dried fish flavor (I don't), these have the gnawable appeal of jerky.

And finally, shoyu-flavored squid chips. Not technically a candy, but the only squid snack I can see eating on a regular basis. The chips are more like small, thin sembei (rice crackers), salty and crunchy and a little bit fishy. These are completely addictive and I foresee polishing them off at the movies tomorrow night. Maybe with a cold beer -- what better way to celebrate my last trip to the movies in Japan than by eating squid snacks and drinking alcohol in public?