So here is my okonomiyaki dinner. Karen and I split a shrimp one because these things are pretty big and neither of us had ever had it before. Lesson learned: never order shrimp in Japan. The Japanese eat the entire shrimp. Tail, shell, head, and legs. The last picture on this page shows you the severed head that I found in my half of the meal. Oh. Lucky me.

First pic is Kathleen and Christy, sort of candid, hee hee. We rode in the rain so we all had wet ahir and soaked clothes.

Aren't these pretty roses? They're huge.

Christy and Kathleen's okonomiyaki.

They put this fish stuff on theirs which "dances" as it cooks from the heat of the okonomiyaki and the grill.

My okonomiyaki. By the way, that's like a BBQ sauce and lots of mayonaise. The Japanese seem to be obsessed with mayo and put it on so much stuff! I don't know what the green is and I wasn't brave enough for the dancing fish flakes. I think there may have been whole basil leaves which tasted really nasty because, well, it's basil, and basil is strong. It could have been something similar, though.

After Karen and I cut the thing in half, we cut up smaller bits and moved them to our little plates and ate the pieces with chopsticks. (It is so hard not to type "hashi," the Japanese word for chopsticks. ^^) The first bite was pretty good, but I saw little shrimp legs sticking out. It soon began to ruin my appetite, but I endured anyway. By the time I came to the shrimp head, I was pretty much through with okonomiyaki. The BBQ sauce and mayo were pretty tasty, but without those, it was kind of bland and icky. I had some of the beef kind from Maren, Jenn, and Danielle's table and there was no sauce on it to speak of.

And last is, of course, the shrimp head. That thing was like 1/3 the size of my hand. Icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky!!!!!!