I've been laid up with bronchitis for the past week, and I am rushing to finish my computer work so I at least have some income from that, plus my school work has been a pain to keep up on, especially when I have to go grubbing around for one of my lungs.
On the topic of Japanese things, I am really happy that our little city of about 50,000 got TWO Japanese restaurants last year, and the one, Fuji, is really good. Shogun, on the other hand, could learn something about how to run a business. But oh, Fuji, great stuff - Hibachi tables for live cooking and show, or just quiet boothes, soothing atmosphere, and delicious food. What a sushi selection, their tempura is incredible, and they have so many other specialties - their Bento box dinners are probably the best value of all, they come in these nice black laquer partitioned boxes with teriyaki or negimaki, rice, sushi, tempura, shrimp, and such, and frankly for what you get the price is actually quite reasonable. I can get a Don Buri (rice with a kind of omelette layered on top with sliced meat and covered with a teriyaki type sauce) for all of $7.50.
And... the sake. Ah, my first taste of real, Japanese sake. First, I had a largish ceramic bottle of hot sake, which is very mild and smooth. The, another time, I had a Sake Bomb
. They half-fill a mug with beer, lay two chopsticks on top of it, and balance a sake cup on them, and then they count down and it the table, knocking the sticks away and drop the sake in, then you chug. Good, fun party drink. My favorite place in town, easily.