Candytopia is exactly what it sounds like, so let’s jump right in.

I get to the city and need to walk only across the street and I’m where I need to be. How often does that happen? So, I’m walking my one block to Candytopia, and a guy and I pass each other, and right as he’s almost past, he says, How you doin, Miss Chocolate Bar?

Took a second to realize, oh, that’s me. I’m Miss Chocolate Bar. [Flashback to when I was Eskimo Boots. ] It was too late to correct him, but for the record, it was a Larabar. Larabars look like chocolate bars because their main ingredient is dates. So they’re brown. Seeing one for the first time jarred me a bit because I was expecting more nutty looking than brown looking but I eat them for health reasons, not for what they look like reasons. If they look like a chocolate bar, so be it. So now I’m Miss Chocolate Bar.

I met S outside and we stood in line until it was our time to enter what seemed to be a little town with a taxi out front. Then the gates opened and into the tiny town we went. It felt like a cross between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley (Fun Fact: usually I’m a lazy writer, but I just looked up the spelling for Diagon Alley because HP fans scare me). Here, I ate a piece of taffy.

We then gained entry into a room of clocks. Hello Alice In Wonderland inspiration. I loved this room. There was a man in a hat who was telling us all about what time it was across the world. It was hard to hear, though, so I walked around taking in the clocks and the things made out of candy. This is the really cool part–there are a lot of things made out of candy and signs that explain how much candy is involved. Like thousands of jelly beans to make a fox or millions of Gummy Bears to make a real bear.

The other really cool part was the clock coming down from the ceiling to reveal Lindt chocolate truffles. I ate one of those, too.

There’s a graffiti room where we found Jackie Sorkin, the Candy Queen and the reason Candytopia is a thing. S gave her some Southpaw Sweets cookies that the Candy Queen immediately posed with for pics. She has such magnetic energy and is so so sweet. The room had a wall that you could write and draw on. And there was a dragon.

Oh, did I mention the big purple blow up thingie that I almost had a panic attack in? Yeah, so, there’s a big purple thing that you have to walk through between rooms and I thought I was going to die in it because it just kept going. Think of a hallway made of a bouncy house that inflates towards the center while you have to push through it. Then imagine it goes on for what seems like a mile. When I finally kind of fell out of the end of it, I looked at the Candytopia worker standing there to direct us, and told her, That? Was not fun.

Everything else? Tons of fun. Here are the highlights.

A room I’ll call a Candy Land. There’s a Katy Perry Madame Taussaud’s-esque statue there along with gumdrops to sit on and trees made of lollipops.

There’s an art gallery where portraits of famous people hang. These are made of jelly beans.

One room has an Under the Sea theme. Some sharks. Some seahorses. All blue hued.

Then there’s a room dedicated to unicorns and confetti. Here’s what happens. You pose for a picture and a Candytopia worker shoots confetti at you. And it’s awesome. I spent the rest of the day with unicorn confetti all up in my hair. And in my pockets. And falling out of my clothing. And then I found it in my bra. [P.S. It’s been a while and I’m still finding it around my house, falling out of drawers even after I’ve washed my clothes]. I grabbed a bag of gummy worms to nibble on.

Another room is a playground. We climbed up on the swing set because we’re clearly 100%. And then I became the proud owner of two pixie sticks.

At some point, I also had some Airheads. It’s a sugary blur.

One of my most favorite sweet treats in all the land is marshmallows. I don’t eat them often because I usually want only one and no one sells singular marshmallows. I didn’t get to eat marshmallows at Candytopia but I did get to jump into a whole pit of them! They weren’t real so it wasn’t sticky. They looked very real, which is what counts.

And then? We got stuck in the pit. I did a pretty good job of staying above the surface, which I considered the day’s workout because my legs were on fire. But then I sunk in. And then I couldn’t exactly get out. Wanna see how the struggle is real? Click the link below.

Aaaand I got stuck in the marshmallow pit. #candytopia #nyc #marshmallows #funisdifficult #todaysworkout pic.twitter.com/FfMe6MFdmZ

— Christina M Rau 🖋📚🧘‍♀️🚀♍️©️ (@ChristinaMRau) August 16, 2018

S was drowning almost the whole time. She was in up to her shoulders for the long haul.

We were by a wall luckily so I pulled myself up. And then I sunk back in. And then I pulled myself up. And this went on until I got to the edge and very lady-like hoisted my ass up in to the air and flung myself out in a shower of fake marshmallowy goodness! How sweet! A bit later on, I found myself in the lobby of a building where a gentleman came in, exclaiming to the doormen, Fellas I brought you some cookies! He handed them cookies. Then I hear, Can’t leave you out! I look up and a variety of cookies appears in my face. How sweet! Again! PS: The next day I had to go to responsible adult stuff, but in the lobby, there was another sweet surprise!

So then today I had to go do responsible adult stuff I didn’t want to do, but in the lobby, two guys we’re giving away ice cream and hot pretzels. #thelittlethings pic.twitter.com/U7UlBiTxB9

— Christina M Rau 🖋📚🧘‍♀️🚀♍️©️ (@ChristinaMRau) August 16, 2018