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.

Cherry Blossoms and Kirk's New Baby

Cherry blossom season has come and gone already - it happened so fast! It's typically the end of March/early April and only lasts for about 2 weeks. But, there are a lot of Hanami (cherry) festivals and celebrations. It's a fun way to really celebrate the coming of spring. The weather is beautiful here right now! But, we keep getting warned that "the rainy season is coming". Whatever. I will use that as an excuse to get some cute Japanese rain boots. :)

Unfortunately, we didn't have a whole lot of time during the 2 weeks of blossoms to grab some photos. And we didn't feel like fighting the crowds during the weekend festival at the Kintai Bridge. So we snuck away during one of our lunch breaks (did you notice I said "our" lunch breaks?? YES, Joel has a job!!) for a 10 minute photo shoot at Kintai.

They were charging for parking because they knew more people would be visiting! What a racket! So we spent 200 yen for 10 minutes... oh well.

If only we'd had time to cross the bridge...

You can see the Kintai Castle on top of the mountain in the background.

Things are turning green again, hooray!

The blossoms truly are beautiful.

So, now we move on to my new baby. Since Joel is a hard working man now (Bachelor Housing Manager under the Navy's authority) I have been begging for two cars. I think Joel, who is not into freely spending money like me which is why we are a good balance, wanted to "try and see" if we could still be a one car family. But no. It was not working well. We both need to have the freedom and independence that comes with having our own cars. Finding a car right now is easy as many of the families are PCSing back home and are trying to sell all of their stuff. I knew I wanted something roomier than Big Red so we could more comfortably pick folks up from the airport with all their luggage when they come visit. :) And we didn't want to spend a whole lot of money since we won't really be getting much of it back when we re-sell the cars before we leave.

So I found the perfect fit!!!

Meet my new 1989 Toyota Surf! Ahhhhhh... it makes me SO happy!

It's an SUV that rides like a truck. It's empowering to drive. :) And the best part is? We got it for $800!

It totally has duct tape holding stuff together on the inside, but who cares about a few little cosmetic details?! It adds to the character for sure. :-p

So now we have a car that rides smoother than Big Red, empowers the people who drive it, provides WAY more trunk space, and allows me to continue being chronically late for work as Joel can leave on time in his own Big Red.

Thank you Joel! I am SO happy!

Hiroshima Carp Baseball Game

My super awesome wife took me to a Hiroshima Carp baseball game for my birthday last week on April 5th along with her co-worker and friend Jeff. Just about every year since I can remember I have either played in or attended a baseball game on my birthday, so it was great to continue that tradition in Japan! The Carp ended up beating the Yomiuri Giants (Tokyo) 2-0 to complete a three game sweep! We had a great time enjoying the ball game, the Japanese ballpark food, and the ever entertaining 7th inning stretch. Enjoy the pictures!

The walk from the Hiroshima station with the stadium in the background.

On the walk to the stadium we pass the Hiroshima Intelligent Hotel - not sure what makes it "intelligent" but we figured that it was blog worthy.

The Carp guy

"zoom zoom"

Along the walkway to the stadium is a wall with this art containing ancient Japanese warriors wearing Carp uniforms!

The good looking crew in their seats awaiting the game to start. We got there a couple hours early so that is why the seats are empty around us. A special thank you to Hiroko for the Hiroshima Carp hat for my birthday!

A view of the field from our seats.

Two Carp fans decked out in their uniforms that sat in front of us and were nice enough to let us take their picture.

Japanese ballpark food - potato wedges with chili sauce (top), potato wedges with cheese (right), fried chicken with curry powder and mayo sauce (left).

More ballpark food - Chicken stir fry.

The Carp cheering section in right field.

The Carp mascot!

Fans getting ready to let go of the balloons for the 7th inning festivities!

Look at all the pink balloons!