Fishing expedition

Despite the late night and general wooziness, many of us still went on a fishing trip that Masami & his friend had organized.





Although the typhoon was moving off track (away from Japan), it was still rainy and a bit cool. Jun saved the day by going to her office and borrowing several brand new rainjackets/pants for us to wear! Giuli and I were such city girls that we showed up wearing skirts and carrying umbrellas!

The 8 of us (Randall & Toko, Steve, Leigh, Tom, Jun, Giuli, and I) donned the orange lifejackets and barely crammed into the tiny boat with Masami and his friend. We motored out to the middle of Miyazu Bay. He showed us his high-tech computer on board that allowed us to locate the fish and how deep they were and then showed us how to hook the frozen shrimp bait throw the lines in!

Within seconds, the fish were biting and when he pulled the line up, all of the 6 hooks were wriggling with "aji" (horse mackerel). He expertly grabbed each fish in his hand and deftly unhooked it, then threw it in a bucket of water. At some points, the water got a bit choppy and I started to feel pretty bad (NOT ship shape!). I couldn't imagine how some of the others felt, especially after that long night of drinking and on no sleep!

We were all pros by the end and probably caught over a hundred fish after 3 hours of being out there! However, we were grimy, wet, and smelled like shrimp and fish guts... I was happy to get back on land and we all piled into cars to head over to the Yoshidas, where we feasted on a big dinner that Kumi had been preparing all day. All of us were soooooo hungry that we just stormed the kitchen and devoured any food that was put in front of us.



(If the video doesn't play, click on the link below)
Meanwhile, Masami was busy at the sink, expertly cutting and skinning the fish (including the spiky part near the tail) while Kumi patted them in tempura flour and dropped them into the pot of boiling oil.

We thought the meal was over, but over the next several hours, we snacked on the fried fish, passed around the bread, ate more food, and caught up on life. There was an episode when we all jumped to the kitchen window to watch a frog that was caught in a gigantic spider's web, but soon got distracted by Masami's friend (who I guess, is also a chiropractor)! He started doing stupid human tricks with our arms and giving us back massages. So random!!!

It was like one big happy Thanksgiving family dinner!!!