A day at the seaside

Yesterday Tetsu and I started off early for a drive and ended up on the east coast of Japan. Tochigi prefecture where we live, is one of the few in Japan that doesn't border the ocean somewhere so we rarely get to the seaside. Yesterday we stopped off at a fish market and enjoyed the sights. I don't know why fish markets are so interesting. Maybe because there are so many grotesque types of fish and as I wandered around I would peer into buckets and trays and wonder how on earth some of the fish should be cooked. I must admit that I was far more drawn to the fish slices rather than the whole fish that lay there looking at me waiting to be cleaned. For some reason Tetsu bought a BOX of horse mackerel (sanma) and I fear I'm going to be cleaning fish for awhile...Either that or give a lot of fish away! Why would he want to buy a box of fish when there is only the two of us at home?

Boxes of crab, barrels of clams, fish heads, grilled fish so that customers can sample the wares. I don't want to frighten anyone, but here are some shots of a Japanese fish market. I don't think fish are sold like this in the States but maybe in other places in the world. Sorry if I gross you out.

This is the typical way salmon is sold in Japan. Sawed completely in half and with the roe. It cooks up nicely and we actually love salmon roe though every time I eat it I remember as a child we would use salmon roe as bait when we went trout fishing. Who knew then that it was such a delicacy.

Here are more split fish and actually these are my favorite. They have been split and dipped in sweet soy sauce and then dried overnight. It makes them a bit salty and they lose some of the fishy flavor. Also they keep longer than regular fresh fish. Tetsu also bought a few trays of these too. We are going to eat fish this week.

I thought this was fascinating. Can you guess what this contraption is? Ignore the pumpkin on top. That was just for decoration... The only concession that the fish market had been aware of the Halloween season. This machine was spinning around and around at quite a high speed and these are squid that are hanging from it! It is a squid drying machine! Yep, someone has cleaned the squid and split them open and then the squid are hung so that they can swing round and round all day in the seaside air (seems to be a lot of cars and boats around too but we won't mention that). Tetsu bought some squid here too so those will also see our dinner table this week.

Fresh oysters were also being sold in front of the market and though Tetsu doesn't like oysters I do so one was split open for me and I gulped it down with a little soy sauce. If you're going to eat fresh oysters a fish market is the place to do it!

We spent a little time on the beach and in a very few minutes I'd picked up some broken shells and Tetsu had collected some driftwood. We both felt like we'd found treasures! I with my sparkly shells and polished glass, Tetsu with his pieces of wood smoothed into interesting shapes. I have no idea what we are going to do with the bits and pieces we've brought back from the beach...

And here I am looking fondly towards America.