Friendship Day 2012

Friendship Day (between the US and Japan) is always celebrated on May 5th (part of the Japanese Golden Week, which has several holidays and celebrations in the same week). This year, it was expected to be massive because it was not held last spring (due to the tsunami and the damage that ensued). And massive it was! As an MCCS employee I HAD to work it (couldn't take leave or get sick). For as many hours as they demanded. In whatever capacity they chose. It was simply up to the powers that be. Which is kinda sad, because I will never have the opportunity to actually go out and explore/appreciate Friendship Day because I will be working the whole time. But, hey, what are husbands for? Joel was a trooper and hung out all day taking pics and being my eyes and ears. :)

So, I was placed in one of the pizza areas. Pizza in Japan is very different and VERY expensive. A medium pizza out in town is about 3500 yen or close to $40! So, pizza is a huge hit on Friendship Day. People actually brought roller suitcases so they could buy a bunch to take home and I was never able to see the end of our line throughout the whole day! I believe MCCS ordered around 13,000 pizzas for the day, and we SOLD OUT! Our stand was responsible for 6,000 pizzas. So from 0700-1700 I was slicing pizzas for the masses. It was hot and crazy but I had fun with the folks around me and had a 5 minute break to scarf down some yakisoba that Joel waited 45 minutes in line to get for me! You'd think the line for Japanese food would have been shorter since the Japanese were mainly waiting in quarter mile long lines for pizza, burgers, smoked turkey legs, hot dogs and fried oreos... Our friend's unit was selling nachos and made $16,000 in the course of the day, can you believe it? Hopefully that indicates that MCCS made a killing and will give us all bonuses this year. :)

A tad more detail before I get to the pics: There were over 300,000 people that attended Friendship Day. People started camping outside the gates a couple days early to be the first to get in (and get pizza apparently). It was all held on the flight line and there were jets lined up for folks to see. Joel overheard a conversation that indicated the Japanese were so interested in military paraphernalia that they were offering to buy the patches off the pilots' uniforms! LOL. Some of the Japanese were wearing old fatigues that they had bought from the surplus store... glad they seem to appreciate our military!

The highlight of the day was the air show. There were US Air Force and Japanese Blue Impulse (equivalent of the Blue Angels) present to perform. It was AWESOME. Well, I didn't get to see it on Friendship Day, but I did see them practicing the day before. It gives me chills it's so cool and Joel was super impressed by it since he's never seen an air show before.

Finally, here are some pics:

My boss, Caroline, and co-worker from another office, Tony, were bartenders for the day. They sold out of beer (9 kegs) right after lunch! So they came over to help our pizza station. Good thing too! We were slammed the whole day!

Standing around at first... little did I know what I was in for. We were under a tent which was nice. I didn't get a tan, but also, I wasn't exposed to the sun for 10 straight hours.

We represented Behavioral Health at the Pizza stand. Jessica, Heather and Kori are AWESOME!

Imagine 6,000 of these boxes!!! We wound up being about 20 short at the end of the day and wrapped our last few pizzas in foil!

One of two massive ovens that kept the pizzas coming for over 10 hours. Btw, we were just cooking frozen Fruschetta pizzas all day and selling them for close to $15 each. We had to have made a killer profit!

This freezer truck was loaded to the gills with pizza. When we heard the announcement that we were down to our last 12 cases, we literally rejoiced.

Kids Land. Obviously Joel took this picture before the masses were allowed entry. Once the day began around 0800, this placed was PACKED and the lines were never ending. It was difficult to navigate around because people would just camp out all over the tarmac to watch the air shows throughout the day. Some took naps, some brought tents and sunbrellas, and some waited in line for food for hours.

And now some pics Joel took of the planes and such on display.

 There was a car show too!

A few of many food stands.

Joel got to eat so much food! He had a turkey leg, yakisoba, fried oreos, ice cream... yada yada. As for me? I will never look at pizza the same. It's gonna be a while before I can eat one again, LOL.

Some of the masses, notice the "sunbrella:. It was a beautiful day - high 70's with a nice breeze, but the Japanese hate getting tan, or burnt rather, so they wear long sleeves, pants, gloves, you name it to protect themselves from the sun.

Finally, my blister. I seriously sliced at least 800 pizzas (and that may be a minimization of the actual number!). I got the motion down, though. Folks were impressed with my speed, LOL. It was fun, but pizza and I will probably never have the same relationship ever again.