Opening day!

The day stared out with everyone running around. Nile stamped goodybags first while Takashi looked out the window as delivery trucks started to arrive.

There were tomoatos to peal as well with a montain of food to cook for 12 guests. Holly didn't know what was going on but still ran around with us.
Takashi cooked pork as the main dish. The pork was shipped from Okinawa and it is the same kind that the Royal family use.
Hatae-san hand delivered a giant crab and beautiful scalops as an opening day present.

Then out of the bule, a box arrived from Yoshie's friend. It is stated that the contents is fish. and it was! Two giant Tai -- a good luck fish one of them still had the hook in it mouth.

Here is Murata-san, TK's super chef, cleaning the fish and Holly hoping to catch some sashimi. We were all running around all the time that day, as TK is demoing here. Lunch was noodles.

We kepted working and working and working.


Before the end of the day, we got over a dozen flowers delivered among other presents
At 5:45 we realized that we didn't have time to eat before our first guests arrived. Here is Takashi crying. He opend a restaurant to eat good food himself, and never did he once think that he will be skipping dinner.

Our guest that night included Tami Hiyama, a very famous cooking teacher in town and our very good family friend. Cheers!


and that is GOHANYA IMAKOKO, restaurant here and now, started.

Nile seeing friends #3- Lina and Yuuko

Nile had a date with her friends and she stopped by the bakeary on the way where she first thought that Rudolph was shopping. It turned out that Rudolph worked there! After buying bread from Rudolph, Nile had dinner with her firends, Lina and Yuuko.

Nile seeing friends#2-Yu, Hina, Shino, Yukiko

Nile went out for lunch with girl friends. From left to Right, Yu, Hinagiku, Shino. Yu and Shino are friends that Nile has had for ever and Hinagiku is Yukiko's daughter. Hinagiku didn't want to sit anymore. Yu is Shino's older sister and Shino looks just liker her mom now!
Finally, Nile got a photo of all three of them staning together and smiling. Here is Yukiko and Hinagiku. Hina is showing off her new trick of two/peace sign.

Nile seeing her friends #1-Cay and Chisato

Chisato and her son, Cay-- for more photos, please see her blog. And this is Nile with Cay on her lap.

Fukuoka Fish Market

There is a large fish market in Fukuoka. It opens over night when the fishermen come back with their catch, and closes at 8 AM. We went there first thing in the morning, which for them is closing time. There were boxes and boxes of various fish and other marine life.

Some of the fish are too big to fit in the box, so they cut out sections for their tails. This is konbu, sea weed, with eggs layed on it. On the right, fish and fish eggs.

The fish market is very large. At this stall they also had a very large fish.




These tanks have fugu in them. (Fugu is blow fish.) If you couldn't tell by now, Matt is fascinated with fugu.

There are also a few vegitable stores at the fish market. Most of them cater towards the chefs that cook on the boats, so a lot of them are closed at this time.

After shopping for fish, we went to a restaurant and had a traditional fish breakfast. (Matt had koroke: fried potatos.) This is dinner time for fishermen, so it was much more hearty than a regular breakfast. Also, some of the men at the restaurant were drinking. It's the end of their day.

The fish Takashi got at the market still had a hook in its mouth!

Hatae's

We went to Hatae's restaurant. He does amazing things with soba and makes great tempura. Yoshie was practicing being a waitress there.

This is one of the many dishes that he prepared for us. It is a raw fish marinated in seaweed. On the left is freshly grated wasabi and on the right are decorative leaves.

Sumo!

Today we went to a sumo match.

We got zabuton seats. Here's one of the first bouts we saw. The guy got slammed to the ground outside of the ring. There were a few times when the contenders went flying into people in the audience.

After the Makushita contenders, the Juryo came in. These are the higher ranking sumo wrestlers. After their introduction, there was an intermission where Matt got to stand next to the top wrestler for a picture. Here is the case of trophies that they give out at the end.

Also at the intermission we bought some sake much like people buy beer at ball games in the states.




Advertisements at the matches are paraded around before the match starts. The one on the far left with the woman on it is for baking soda. This is the final match of the year. The yokuzana (champion), and from Mongolia, was against a Japanese from Fukuoka. The Japanese lost, and so the crowd was upset. As is tradition, they all threw their zabutons.

Nile threw her zabuton and made Matt throw his. This picture is someone else's zabuton who had left. Among the trophies is this giant metal Coke bottle. There are corporate sponsors who give away everything from cash to cows and 2 tons of vegetables.

Best Sushi in the World

We went to Yoshitomi's tonight. We were very happy to be there. There, the owner Yoshitomi, provides a one man show with sushi.

Squid with sea urchin on top. Yoshitomi carefully places salt on top. The end product also has some yuzu juice on it too.