WAY too Fresh Sushi in Japan! The Fish That Was Still Moving…

“AGHHH!!!!” I screamed, throwing myself underneath the low restaurant table, “IT’S STILL ALIVE!!!”

Sure enough, the sparkling silver fish atop our fresh sushi platter was mouthing “Oooga Oooga Oooga” at us, despite having all its flesh from the neck downward sliced off in a bloody mess and sitting four inches to its left.

“AGHHHH!!!”

The other four folks at the table were more nonchalant. Yuki and her co-worker are Japanese, and thus perhaps used to these extremes of freshness. Mike has been living here seven years, and reports that on his first work dinner, his shrimp jumped off the plate and ran away. Dee is just a connoisseur of the strange; he had originally suggested we order the raw horsemeat.

One by one the others chomped down the silky fish flesh (myself, I was suddenly full), at times remarking to fishy, “I’m eating you, little guy!” At last the mouth stopped its bubble blowing and we said a prayer for the dead fish. And ate it some more.

“JESUS!” Yuki suddenly shouted. “After 3 days he rises from the dead!” Holy heaven, she was not kidding. We followed her finger pointing towards the plate and, indeed, fishy’s fins were suddenly a-twitch! “Twitch, twitch, twitch!” they flipped, swimming with this bone-exposed, sliced up body towards marine heaven.

“AGHHHH!!!”

Dee has always had an issue with organized religion, as he claims the Catholic Church made his father a bank robber. Without a second thought, he picked up the spastic little guy and plopped him upright in a glass. In just thirty minutes, fishy gained a crown, cape, scepter, necklace, and throne.

Thank heaven Mike is a professional photographer.

(See http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansai/ for the full Mike Connolly experience!)