ただいま！Actually, I got back last night, but was too tired to check in. I had a great time in Montreal, but the drive was very tiring.

We left at around 8am Thursday morning. The drive was quite smooth for the most part; there was a bit of traffic when we approached Highway 400, and when we hit downtown Montreal. It was creepy driving around downtown Montreal, with all the one-way streets and all. We got to the Infotouriste Centre at around 3:30pm and bought our museum passes. After that, we checked into our hotel and by the time we finished, it was 4:30pm. We walked over to Theatre Hall Concordia to pick up our tickets. Luckily the line wasn't too long, and we were done by about 5pm. We originally wanted to buy tickets to the 1st screening of Thirst, but that was sold out, so we ended up seeing only one movie during our stay.

We headed over to Cafe Java U, where the meet-up was taking place. loverspit, crystal_martlet and garnet_phoenix were already there. After we introduced ourselves, we talked about Arashi briefly. Then we decided some of us will head over to the theatre to line up (since there was already a line-up when we left the theatre at 5pm) while the others will stay at the cafe to wait for others who might show up. My sister and I, along with crystal_martlet headed over to the theatre while loverspit and garnet_phoenix stayed behind. Shortly after, genuyn spotted my sister's Sho uchiwa and joined us in line, and loverspit and garnet_phoenix came afterwards. We were allowed into the theatre around 6pm and luckily, we were able to find seats near the middle. The theatre was packed (I'm guessing it was sold out), and it took a while to get everyone seated, so we didn't start until 7pm.

After the obligatory introductions / thank you's, producer Chiba came on stage dressed in Sho's Yatterman costume. He was hillarious! I don't remember what he said exactly, but he ended with "...please play the video". They showed a clip of Miike in the countryside working with a bunch of people. He explained those people are all filmmakers and they all live in the village. He went on to say that only Fantasia understands / appreciates what he does, and it ended with him saying "tadaima" and going inside a hut.

I won't spoil the movie. Although there were a couple of cheesy moments, the movie was awesome. There were quite a few jokes in parts of the movie you wouldn't expect. Sho, the actor who cannot chooses not to do back flips, fits the superhero character very well.

We stayed until the credits finished rolling, and we sang along to "Believe" when it came on. I think there was supposed to be a Q & A session with producer Chiba, since one of the organizers said he'll join us again after the movie, but I guess they scrapped it since it ran over time (the next movie was supposed to start 9:30pm). It was about 9pm when we exited the theatre. We took some pictures with the Yatterman poster, then walked over to Nickel's for dinner. We flailed over Arashi, and took turns asking questions. It was fun flailing with people in RL since I don't get to do that very often. None of my friends like Arashi; they only person I flail with is my sister.

We parted ways at about 10:30pm and my sister and I headed back to our hotel. I was so tired after that, but I had lots of fun. It was nice meeting all of you; Arashi fans are the nicest! Hopefully we'll get to meet again.

If Yatterman plays at TIFF I'm so going.