Today I went on a "date" with Ann and her friend. We went to Wakaba Walk, which is a mall. We got ぴりくら (pirikura)- which are pictures taken in a booth and then decorated and printed onto stickers. We have similar things at home, but it's intensely popular here. I think I went 3 times in the first 2 weeks I was here, so it's been awhile. It was fun. Middle/ High school aged girls have little books designated for the collection of pirikura stickers.

So at the mall, I was astonished by the number of preteen girls dressing like they're in their late teens/twenties; high heels, fancy clothes, big purses. And it was obvious they were not accustomed to wearing heels because they wobbled and stumbled and just looked awkward.

The movie Ann wanted to see wasnt playing so we saw Shinchan- which is for kids younger than Ann and Mika. Every kid got a kazoo... whoseever idea that was was out of their minds. These kids have never seen kazoo's before, so giving it to them resulted in headaches for me and all of the parents around. The movie was pretty funny. I didn't get the details because it was in Japanese, but basically this environmentally crazy guy and his cult enter town and people get turned into animals and this little boy and his friends save the day. I'm not sure why everyone turned into animals or how the 2 bad guys involved (who were also enemies) made up and turned good, but it was entertaining and I got the gist of it.

We also saw what may be the local version of Miley Cyrus. Ann and Mika were really excited about it. It was a live performance by this girl who was MAYBE 10 years old and sings modernized traditional Japanese music, so it sounded like. It was really crowded. She was really talented, but we waited for an hour and after 20 minutes they wanted to go home.... kids. It was fine with me though. I had fun.

I finally asked why Ann is called Ann when her name is Yasumi. The kanji for "Yasu" is 安　which means "safety in the house" (or "cheap" when followed by い. Another pronunciation of 安 is "an," thus, Ann. Ta-kun's friends call him Kuro, short for Kurokawa, which I think is pretty cool.