So far, my vacation has been coming along nicely. All week I stuck to my daily regimine of study and reading, not to mention quite a bit of bicycling in the meantime so I'm pretty happy with myself. I even got to play tennis on Saturday, although I was really not on my game. In fact, I really stunk up the court.

But, yesterday was the climax of my vacation. Jin and I finally got to try a restaurant we'd been searching for for months. We saw it on a program about interesting places in Fukuoka. Luckily, I happened to run across an ad for it in a magazine the other day so we were pretty excited.

The draw of the restaurant, Zauo, is fresh fish...so fresh that you catch them yourself! We had tried to make resurvations but they said they were full all night so we decided to drop by just in case. We ended up getting a table but not one in the cool boats were you can fish right from your table. So, we had to stand on the side of the pool with our fishing rods...and stand...and stand. I thought it would be pretty easy. I mean, it seemed like these little kids were catching huge fish left and right. But, we were there for over an hour. Finally, Jin went to one end of the pool and I took the other. A man came next to me and stuck his line in for 2 minutes and pulled out a huge snapper. I had to help net it and I was quite perturbed. Who did he think he was, stealing my snapper and making me help him!? Luckily, soon after, I hooked my own. We decided that one was enough because we were really tired and hungry by that time.

I'm telling you, sashimi never tasted so good! I don't know why catching it myself made it taste so much better. Maybe it's human nature or maybe it's the Neaderthal in me. I know some people wouldn't eat it because they don't like to see what they are eating while it's still alive. I, however, have no problems with that. In fact, we even gave her a name, Twitchy-chan, since she was still kickin' well over an hour after I caught her. Right up until the last bite. Now that's fresh!

Twitchy-chan was so tasty that we ate every last piece...then took what was left(the head, tail, and bones) home to make garlic soup. Speaking of garlic, I think I've found the source of my stomach problems. As we were making the soup today I caught Jin just as he was about to add the slimey green garlic that I'd accidentally left out of the freezer. Although he swore up and down that it was OK since we were going to cook it...I insisted on using the fresh garlic. I wonder how many times I've walked into the kitchen just a little to late.

Anyways, I definately reccomend this restaurant to anyone who happens to be in the Fukuoka area. As for me, I'll go again (not without a seaside table reservation, though). I'm also looking into deep sea fishing excursions. I'm hooked.