A day out with my host sister

Catch up day!
In case you haven't noticed, I haven't blogged all week... So I'm going to try to catch up on the whole week today! (^^;)
10/10/2010
Today I went shopping with my host sister. She knows that I love Ninomiya Kazunari, so she decided to take me to this official johnny's idol shop in Nagoya. (Johnny's is the company that produces Arashi (the group that nino is in), they also produce like every other successful band of guys (exaggeration) like Smap, hey say jump, etc.) So when we got there, we had to stand outside in a line, and they handed us these inventory-like sheets and pens. When we got inside, we went up some stairs, and into this room that wasn't very big. There were different "corners" for different bands, and you had to stand in line for the one you wanted to see. There were roped of sections for each group. We went into the Arashi one, of course, but that one was the most crowded, of course. So I stood in that "line" for a good 30 minutes, it was more like a mob than a line. And it was all to see a bunch of pictures on a wall of Arashi. But what you do is you look at the pictures, and see which ones you want. There are numbers on all of the pictures, so you see the number you want, and then mark on your inventory sheet next to the one you want, how many of them you want. I was trying to see them from way back, but the pictures are really small. I mean I was never more than like 10 feet away from them, because it was a short and crowded line, but people took FOREVER to pick the ones they wanted. I chose all of mine from a distance, and as a result was a little disappointed in some of the pictures I got... But the pictures are only 150 yen each, which I thought was cheap, but my host parents thought it was expensive. I bought four pictures, and my host sister bought two (of a different person). When I went to check out, I watched the people in front of me to figure out how to do it. They would hand their papers to the people at the register (some people had multiple pages, because you had to use a different one for each "corner") and then the person at the register would call out the numbers (pretty quickly), and someone in the back would be grabbing the pictures from the library of pictures, organized by corner and number. After they were all grabbed, they would come and lay out all of the pictures for the buyer, to make sure they were correct. I saw multiple people who had so many pictures I couldn't believe it. There was one girl, where they laid out all of her pictures, and they took up the whole counter, so they doubled them up, and took up the whole counter again, and then started on a third layer. It was a little ridiculous... But I'm happy with my pictures :) Oh, also, there were some foreigners behind me (from America) when I was waiting to see Arashi, and I was tempted to try to talk to them, but thought it would be too awkward, so I didn't.
After that I went with my host sister to Osu Kannon, which is a shopping center, but there is a temple at entrance. So when we first got there, we went to the temple first. We tossed in coins and prayed, and then we went over to this big bowl of incense, and my host sister was wafting it toward her, and toward me, and I just looked confused. So my host sister told me that it makes you smarter if you smell it, so I was like "oh, okay!" and I started wafting it toward me too. My host sister laughed at me.
After that we went into the shopping center, and decided to get lunch right away. We went to this udon shop, but they put Katsuobushi* on my udon, so my host sister asked them to take it back, and make me some without it, but they just took it back to the kitchen, and removed it (or tried to), needless to say I couldn't really eat it. I felt sooo bad, but my host sister told me it was okay if I didn't eat it.
After that we just sort of shopped around, I don't remember everything... oh, we went to this really sketchy looking shop! My host sister really loves reggae, she even went to Jamaica for a while to study it, so she saw like a reggae shop, and asked if we could go. but it was on a side street, with like nothing else there, and it was upstairs. When we got into the actual shop, it was like a 10'x10' room, and it was just packed with stuff, it was so weird! I thought of buying something for Joseph there, but then realized how silly it would be to buy some reggae stuff for him as a souvenir from Japan...
Also, we stopped at this coffee shop and got some really pretty cake~ I got a chocolate cake, and my host sister got a fruit shu cream, which was gorgeous! but I forgot to take pictures! :( Once I find that coffee shop again though, I will definitely take pictures!
We also had a chance meeting with SKE48 (The Nagoya branch of AKB48, but mostly only creepy old men like SKE48...), the girls were just standing there and talking to fans, and we ran into them. But we just sort of left because there were a lot of creepy old guys who wanted to talk to them.
When we got back to Nagoya station and were going to the platform to take the train back to kida, we stopped at a magazine stand because we had extra time. My host sister walked in there, asked if I saw a magazine with nino on the front, (I saw one right away, even though I could only see like his forehead) she asked me if I had it already, I said no, so she just walked away to the counter and bought it for me. It has a lot of pictures of nino in it, and it says when Arashi will be on tv, which is how I knew that there was a 2 hour special on thursday.
I don't remember anything else significant happening today, so that's all.

*katsuobushi is shaved dried fish. We actually went to a Katsuobushi shop for culture and society one time, but I don't think I blogged about it. the dried fish look like rocks, and we watched the guy shave it, and some people tried it out. When it is put on something hot, it dances, so it was dancing in my udon.