This has all changed, last time I was in San Fran Eugene Ciurana took us all to a Sushi place called Takara . Now, Eugene is the author of the Sushi Eating HOWTO so if there is anyone who knows good sushi, it should be him! And he didn't disappoint. We had only sushi which was comprised of raw fish, on top of rice with a layer of wasabi. Then moved on to a few cooked items like eel and octopus. Everything was fantastic, absolutely no gag reflex triggered at any point.
I think the problem I've always had with sushi is a) I'm not a huge fan of fish, I mean I don't hate it, i just don't go out of my way to eat it b) I've always had "rolls" in my limited sushi experience, and these rolls always have seaweed and some sort of mayonnaise type stuff in them. I'm really not a fan of cold creamy sauces, so right away I was turned off. And the seaweed has such a fishy flavour that it didn't agree with my gentle palate.
The raw fish didn't taste fishy at all, I was taken aback, the only thing that tasted mildly fishy was the eel.
I think I must be getting cultured, I find Winnipeg lends itself to being cheap and not really trying things. Or, maybe that's just me.
EDIT: The same thing happened to me with Scotch a few years ago, shout out to Fred Martin from Morgan Stanley for opening my eyes to the smoky flavour of Laphroaig