Friendship Day

Yesterday we went to the Friendship Festival that Yokota Air Force Base puts on every year near Haijima (where Chris used to live). This is the one weekend out of the entire year that they open up the base to the public. I guess last year over 100,000 people visited over the weekend and by seeing the amount of people there yesterday, I wouldn't doubt it. 

We needed our passports to get on to the base, but Japanese people didn't need to have them. The soldiers were very friendly, but at the same time, I can't imagine the nightmare of coordinating safety for the event, they are still very much on guard during the entire thing!

I think the festival is a great way to foster community relations though. They had both American food and Japanese food, did plane demonstrations, Japanese citizens and soldiers were taking pictures together (and some were asking for soldier autographs lol), there were strong man exercises, attack dog exercises, and fireworks. It was really funny seeing some of the people try American food/drinks for the first time. Brad and I were waiting in line for some food and a couple in front of us were debating on whether or not Gatorade was a sports drink or juice. (By the way, anything that is not coffee, tea, or water is considered juice here and while many people enjoy "juice" it is still considered for children.)

We got to see some cool airplanes, eat some American food, and basically just walk around one area of the base. And I got to have my first Diet Pepsi in over 6 months!! (They only have Coke Zero and Pepsi Nex here.)

Inside one of the buildings. They had different bands playing underneath the flags on a stage.

This was funny. Notice the picture on the right: Star Trek anyone?

Even the cheerleaders on the base came out to do a performance. From what we understood, they don't have a football team, but only compete in 2 competitions along with other bases during the year. 

We got to see some helicopters and a couple of planes take off. Unfortunately I think we missed the flying acrobatics and parachuting. :(

Not the best picture...but still nice! It was so hot out--we definitely got a little sunburned!

People loved seeing the American fire truck. Japanese fire trucks are about half the size of American ones. 

A refueling plane!

Unauthorized entry is punishable by Japanese art. (?)

F-22

I think this is an F-16

And they had some of the Japanese Defense Force airplanes on display too.

After taking a quick recharge nap on the runway...

...it was time to break out the"standard issue", won from a claw game bag, cooler/speaker system to rock out to on the runway.

And then the sun went down. FYI if you ask any Japanese person what color the sun is, they say red. 

Aren't cultural differences interesting?

When we were walking out we got to see an attack dog demonstration. Very cool!

I took a lot more pictures (as I do with almost everything). I'm working on getting all of our pictures (and maybe videos, too) onto Picassa so that you can see all the pictures from our adventures. Hope you're enjoying life as much as we are!