Oct 15, 05 (Saturday)

It was a sunny and beautiful day. We decided to go to the beach, found several of our students trying to surf. Everyone except C.J, was his first time to surf and was working very hard. We walked along the beach. I picked some shells and found a blue jelly fish we had seen yesterday. It was about 7" in diameter and had many different colors inside. We couldn't find the Moores or Pam, so we decided to go back to our hotel to swim in the pool. Nobody was swimming except one family. We stayed in the pool for a short while and decided to go to eat at Mikado we found in the brochure.

01 Beach at Gold Coast

Mikado was on the third floor of the Clock Tower in the middle of the city. It wasn't a very big restaurant, but we enjoyed our Teppanyaki lunch special. The chef was an Australian who lived in Japan for 4 years and also in Finland. He spoke pretty good Japanese and told us the Finnish and Japanese are very similar in grammar and said his children speak both Finnish and English. We were served with an appetizer of sunomono with shiitake mushroom and other vegetables. The chef cooked King prawns beautifully and cuttle fish and vegetable. We ordered sirloin steak, so the chef seasoned well and served us. We also had miso soup and steamed rice. The dessert was fruits in season, cantaloupe, kiwi, orange, and watermelon. We enjoyed talking to a family who joined in our table. The man ordered without looking at the menu, 3 plates of sashimi, California roll, lobster, Japanese beef, and other stuff came with the Teppanyaki. After lunch we strolled along the busy touristy areas and found a small Japanese store and bought 2 boxes of Poky and 5 packages of ramen.

02 Glen trying to surf

03 Blue Jellyfish

04 Hotel Pool

05 Yum!!! At Mikado