Hunting, Shooting, Fishing – without the Hunting and the Shooting

Today Jenny, Kara and I set off with three Japanese guys (Shin, Kazuya, and Etsu) for some fishing. I was the only person who had never fished before. Turns out – fishing isn’t all that hard! And it was oddly meditative and relaxing. I mean, we fished from the side of a pier, so it wasn’t exactly mind blowingly exciting, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless. I even caught a few fish! However, as Jenny’s and mine interest waned a little, we eventually took a bit of a break to go wander around the town of Obama, which we were then in. Obama is a quaint little resort town about 45 minutes away by car from Shimabara. It’s basically just on the other side of the mountain, so we had to drive through the mountains to get there. Needless to say, it was a gorgeous drive with a gorgeous destination. Temporarily leaving our fishing buddies behind, we hit up the shops in the area and I was soon being offered dried, deep fried fish guts and squid tentacles that had been flattened into a chip by a large pressing machine right before my eyes. The guy was nice enough to give it to us for free….really though I can’t imagine who would buy bags of this stuff and bring it back to their friends as a present! Oh wait! That’s right. The Japanese would of course. Seriously you guys back home can’t imagine the kinds of things I have eaten over that last little while.

For example, we recently had another school enkai and I had to eat a huge snail (the size of my fist) which was gray, resembled an intestine and bled purple bile when you poked at it (as you can imagine I know this because I now poke at everything, if only to make sure that it’s eternal soul has passed over to the other side, and it is in fact dead…..believe me, being dead is not always a criterion for a Japanese food item. I found that out the hard way.). I did eat the snail though. I forced myself after quickly downing four shots of sake, to put the damn thing into my mouth and chew. Well it was tough as rubber, had the worst texture in the universe and tasted disgustingly bitter as well. So much for looks being deceiving. Moreover, when I told my Iaido instructor that I hated it, he made me eat two more. At this point, I looked angrily at the ceiling swearing in my head that if there was in fact a god of some sort up there, then he certainly had a uniquely sick sense of humour. I tried my best not to gag like those people on Fear Factor do when they have to eat something unbelievably gross, and instead just swallowed quickly and chased it with more sake in order to tranquilize the automatic heaving reflex. They then put a huge fish about the size of half my body (not kidding) in front of me. It’s eye was coldly staring at me while bits of its body had been chopped up for consumption (but were still arranged in what was supposedly the original shape of the fish). Let me tell ya, after the snail I ate that raw fish like it was Kraft Dinner.

But I digress. Back to fishing. Later that day, I was complimented on my fishing arm given that it was my first time. However, the actions of casting a line and performing a downwards cut with a katana are very similar, so I think that might have helped. I even got to hook my own line with live bait and make some very appetizing fish mash to attract the fish to the area. It was definitely a great experience overall. That is what I love about Japan more than anything else I think. It is so easy to try random new things here! I mean things are so much cheaper than back home and people are so much more willing to help you out! Back home I probably would have had to rent fishing equipment and beg people to teach me, maybe even pay for lessons or something. Frankly I am just not interested enough in fishing to do that back home. Here though, the opportunities just come up and since it’s so easy to organize and is free as well, there is really no reason to say no. I am currently getting free Japanese lessons as well, and have also been given free Historical tours of the area, as well as a number of other things. I love trying new things so this fits in well with my personality. The main thing I hate about life in North America is that anything you want to try takes so much effort and money. A big reason I stopped studying French was because it was too damn expensive! The same goes for going to Operas and theatre and such. I mean so many people lack culture and experiences because our society makes it so hard for them to try new and interesting things! It pisses me off. Maybe I will have to do something about that when I get back. Until then I guess I’ll just enjoy the experience – much to the dismay of Japanese fish, I’m sure.