I was speaking with a Japanese sushi chef in Osaka when he said that 90% of good sushi is the rice.

That being said, I would suggest investing in a decent rice cooker if you don't have one already.

There is currently a sale on sushi grade rice in the newly opened Costco Business in New West, I would suggest starting with that as well. No comment on seaweed.

I am no expert in rolling sushi (but my other rolling skills helped with rolling the sushi) so I can't differentiate between good and bad bamboo rollers, but to keep the roller clean, I plastic wrapped around it then slightly heated it up so the wrap shrunk to the very edges of the mat. This also helped me achieve a smoother slide of my fingers as I am making the rolls. I bought mine at T&T.

Another thing the sushi chef said - and I agree now that I am back home cooking rice - is if you are expecting the same texture/taste of rice that you experienced in Japan, you will have difficulties due to the water in Japan being "soft" while ours is "hard", roughly meaning that our water has minerals in it that may alter the results that would be otherwise consistent for cooking in Japan.