Spring Festival 2012

This past weekend was the Spring Festival here on the Yokosuka Naval Base.... wooooohooooo.... although it's not really for us! They do this festival every year to commemorate the gift of the cherry blossoms that Japan gave to the United States and this year was the centennial... sort of a BIG deal! Anyway the gates of the base are open to the Japanese people on this day to show the friendship the U.S. and Japan have! There was music, dancing, entertainment, lots of American foods, and most of the commands had booths set up selling all the kind of food you might find at your local county fair! I even saw a booth selling deep fried twinkies... ugh! The cherry blossoms haven't bloomed quite yet here, but I saw on the news that they are in full bloom in Washington, D.C. Hopefully in the next few weeks they will bloom and we will have a chance to go see some pretty places, but I am also told that one gust of wind can clear the trees wicked fast and that'll be the end of that!!!

On the day of the festival, Damian and I made a quick appearance and walked over from our apartment to see what it was all about... there were people everywhere!!!!! The commander of the base said that over 38,000 Japanese nationals came onto the base on Sunday for the festival... that is A LOT of people!!!! I didn't take this picture but it was taken from the USS GW on Sunday during the festival... if you look closely, Mt. Fuji came out to play!!! The GW was open for the visitors to tour during the festival and they had about 12,000 people tour it, mostly the flight deck and the hangar bay where they had food and activities. Some of the sailors who were dressed in uniforms were like celebrities to the young Japanese kids, they had little books that they were having the sailors sign and they ALL wanted pictures take with them too! There was also a decent amount of Japanese Navy on base that day walking around. It was pretty cool that they do something like this... I know it definitely helps keep close ties with the community! Other than that, quiet week here on CFAY... until next time... sayonara!

Japanese Word of the Day:
Sakura: Cherry Blossom