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So, on DAY SIX I got up and ate breakfast. Only this time it was different, a Japanese style breakfast. Masao stuck around and ate with us this time. After breakfast we went to the place where we had been dropped off by the bus.

We went to the house of the man who had organized the program in Shijiki to learn how to make sushi and odango. There were only girls in Shijiki group, so it was basically us, our homestay mothers, Rei, Maiko, and Lisa (the delegation leader). And then there was Masao, who was the only guy there (except for the father of the family whose house we were at, and I didn't actually see him at all after that one time).

We were first cutting up the ingredients, which included fishcake (not naruto - it was different), some sort of root, and shiitake mushrooms. After that, we made odango, which is kinda difficult. First, you have to take some mochi, pound it flat with your fist, and then put some sweet bean paste in the middle. The really hard part is getting the mochi to close around the sweet bean paste without the paste coming out. Poor Masao is completely useless at cooking >_< He couldn't make odango at all. After that, we made sushi by molding it into these wooden forms. He couldn't manage that either.

Of course, the really fun part of the cooking was getting to eat it, which we did shortly after finishing the sushi.

After that, we got to go out on a fishing boat! It was one that used nets to fish, and we pulled in a lot of stuff, like squid and eels and swordfish. Once, we even got a barracuda. Later on the boat, we pulled in at a small island, where we fished individually using lines. I discovered that I am a decent fisherwoman! I pulled up six fish, one of which we kept for dinner. ^w^

And dinner was really good! We had this charcoal barbecue, and grilled all kinds of stuff: fish, chicken, meat, squid (which I did eat), octopus, potatoes...

After dinner Kuki came out of his room. I think he was either too afraid or too shy to come out before. Anyway, the other girls in the delegation scared the crap out of him by trying to ask him whether he had a girlfriend, and the poor guy ran away. >_<

But he came out later to play baseball.

We wemt back to my homestay mother's house, and I got to show them my pictures from home.

I don't like to choose, but this was definitely one of my favorite days on the whole trip.