Sushi, Sushi, Sushi

"IRWINS- we totally want to go- we are SO into competitive eating!" Emily excitedly proclaimed into my answering machine.

We had called around to some friends inviting them to go to a sushi festival and sushi eating contest with us on Sunday. Emily was returning my phone call and apparently was super happy about the prospect. You see Emily makes her husband, Tim, watch the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest every year with her on tv. This was Emily's first chance to see an eating competition IN PERSON! What a privilege! :) So we all headed downtown to take in all of the asian festivities. In all actuality there wasn't much to do. Thank God Y98 was there- the girls got to win some prizes so they had some toys to play with! They threw around mini beach balls for a long time while we awaited "The Competition". There was some native drumming by umm...white people and then it was time to watch 8 men and 2 women stuff their face with california rolls! They introduced all of the contestants. Last years winner was competing, trying to beat the 78 sushi rolls he ate last year. The contest began with 10 minutes on the clock and boatloads of sushi! Everyone had a different technique- some would stand, some didn't, some were wasted before the contest even started, some took drinks of various kinds after every roll. About 4 minutes in, a contestant got up and went backstage to toss his cookies (or well, sushi). He never returned. In the end, an asian man won, eating something like 86 sushi rolls! Too bad the queasy man never came back- after three minutes he was already up to 63 rolls! Emily said, "that is what is so different between this and the hot dog competition- The hot dog contest is only 6 minutes long and this is 10 minutes long. This one is all about endurance!". So we had an especially amusing time with enjoyable company. Next year, Ryan wants to participate! (the grand prize is a trip to Japan - we could finally visit Ryan's Aunt and Uncle who live in Japan)

By the way, we forgot our camera, so the above photo is not from the actual event. I found it online so you could FEEL like you were there. :)