Haha, you should move here, a cowboy states Colorado, people take risks here :)

Actually, raw eggs may be illegal or at least fishy, but I know for a fact non-frozen fish isn't illegal here or in California. How do you guys eat oysters?

As insane as it sounds, I think it is OK to serve oysters raw and never frozen, as culturally it is part of our "diet", where raw salmon, tuna, yellowtail, etc. is not a cultural part of the typical American diet.

Of course, I have heard more horror stories about bad oysters than bad tuna, but that doesn't really matter.

It's interesting that serving salmon raw wasn't really Japanese culture originally. You are totally right that it is all about culture. And the Japanese know a bit more about eating things raw. Tuna = OK. Mackerel = you have to be really careful, Salmon = traditionally a big no-no, cause salmon around Japan have parasites, but someone found that western salmon don't, so it's a collaboration of the West and Japan that we have salmon sushi today.

20 years ago, I didn't even dare eating sushi outside Japan, but now we have quite a lot of places that serve good sushi. Things have changed. I'm still sometimes a bit skeptical about American Sushi chefs though... so I somewhat see the reason for the raw fish ban. But still, liberate raw fish! It's chef's fault, not fish's.

Anyway, I'm digressing like crazy. goodnight everyone.

I've always been partial to Natto and rice.:D

Yeah, this is something I learnt on a cookery course; as long as the eggs are fairly new (easy to check by shaking to see if there's a noise or floating in something. Fresh eggs sink.) and the shells have been scrubbed clean, you should be fine to eat it raw. You're more likely to get salmonella off of undercooked chicken or leftover rice than eggs anyway. If you are ever concerned, the best thing is to not let the egg get in contact with anything the shell has touched. So like, don't put an egg in a bowl and then crack it into the same bowl. Crack it into something else, discard the shell and then wash your hands before continuing.

I'm not surprised to hear more people get ill from oysters in the USA than egg, some restaurants can get pretty lazy about checking over their stock and as a customer it's harder to tell if shellfish is off after it's been cooked. Sometimes it can look and taste fine, and still make you really ill. I've had a couple of bad shells in my time so I'm hyper alert to off-fish now; thankfully I can usually tell from the smell and the taste; off or on the turn fish has that muddy hint.

Back on subject, the japanese kids I used to live with pretty much had one of two things for breakfast; omelette and salad or toast and coffee. It was only one girl when she was particularly ill or hungover or homesick who would bother with miso and rice and things, because it took too much effort to make it everyday.

It’s really interesting to see the differences among cultures. For me soup and fish would be more appropriate as a supper. I cannot imagine myself eating any of these things just after getting up in the morning, let alone the miso soup with its green onion.
I guess many Japanese people couldn’t imagine themselves having my favourite breakfast, toasts with olive oil and tomato. I've found a link with a picture of it:

Tostada con tomate - a cheap Spanish breakfast or snack

I believe that you can't eat raw salmon unless you freeze it, or smoke it, because of the parasite.

I like Japanese breakfast, natto+raw egg+rice, oh wow delicious.

If you can try raw egg, try it! beat it up and put some shoyu, or umm... like in Yoshinoya pour it into Gyudon. Oh yeah!

You can order gyudon+raw (or half-cooked) egg in Yoshinoya (umm... I think you can order it in the other gyudon shop like Matsuya or Sukiya too, I'm not sure)

Why is it that Japanese like raw food (eggs, fish…) so much? Do you think it has to do with a general philosophy, a preference for simple, natural things?

It's mainly about taste I reckon and the fact that with seafoods it's so easy to get them fresh daily here. Few places in Japan are more than a few hours from the coast. The texture and taste of raw meats is just so different to the cooked variety. If you enjoy the texture and flavour, like I do, then no other reason is needed to explain why you'd like to eat things raw.
I think a lot of the cooking the hell out of meats in western societies arose from there not being access to fresh foods too often. They really needed to cook everything so as not to get disease. In Japan fish caught that morning are on your plate that evening. Awesome! :D

Ohhh yes!!! LOVED it!