Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sharkey and Punchie

It's the last day of Golden Week here in Japan. We did nothing. Five days off in a row and the best we could manage was to go to the Kasado Island festival for an hour.

I would post pictures, but we took next to none. The big excitement of the festival was the goldfish scoop. For 100 yen each, my boys got a paper net and the opportunity to scoop out goldfish. I'm sure in the U.S. this wouldn't be allowed on humanitarian grounds. Let's face it, small boys terrorizing goldfish is not a pretty sight. The only consolation is that the paper nets tear after about 5 seconds of scooping, so it's pretty hard to catch anything.

My boys actually wanted goldfish, so they handed their little nets to my husband and me. Daddy was busy trying to hold his camera and netted nothing. I, on the other hand, who royally suck at all things carnival, managed to scoop the largest goldfish in the plastic pool. The vendors looked shocked. It was the 5 inch beauty and it's worth a lot more than the average goldfish.

I was also shocked. I quickly told them that I didn't want the big one, and asked if we could swap it for a black one. My logic was, if I'm going to kill a goldfish, I want the smallest fish corpse I can dispose of. DS1 wanted a black fish, but of course, DS2 wanted a pink(?) one. The vendor gave us a plastic baggie with a black fish and a pale white fish. Bagged two fish with one scoop!

So now, Sharkey and Punchie live in a tank on my cluttered counter.

2 comments:

Betsy said...

I enjoyed your goldfish logic. Did you know there is such a thing as Goldfish911.com. Only in America, methinks. Hope your fish are thriving. Otherwise.... homemade sushi....

-alex said...

Alas, Sharkey and Punchie died a sad death from fungal infection only 8 days after we got them. I gave them a proper burial via the toilet.