Text 2667, 47 rader
Skriven 2006-07-02 19:48:45 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
Ärende: Sasebo Festival day
===========================
Well, I'm home and we had a ball!  The base was open to all and we had a good
turnout and lots of games and such.  If there was anything amiss, it's that
the games were a bit too easy to win for a 12 yearold, but Charlotte enjoyed
it anyways.

She got to dunk the Tortuga CSO at the dunk tank.  One highlight was the 'fire
safety trailer'.  Thats all setup like a little home and a fireman leads you
through the cooking area (demos a CO2 fire extinguisher) and safe cooking
habits (even how to make sure pot handles are inwards).  They get to evacuate
from the bedroom out a window and they even have a water mist machine that
simulates smoke.  Then they have a firemans demo where the kids get to don an
SCBA (firefighters breathing tanks) and 'suck rubber' with the air mask for a
minute or so.  Charlotte looks cute in an FFE (fire fighters ensamble).

The food was all pretty normal faire for such places except that here, this
would include 'fish sticks' (small whole cleaned grilled fish on a stick). 
All prices were in yen and dollars so it didnt matter which you had and no one
had to run off to exchange money types.  I helped one slightly confused
Japanese lady who didnt realize that at first and wanted to exchange some yen
with me but once she reaized it didnt matter, she was quite delighted to use
her normal yen types.  The translation of 100 yen to a dollar isnt exact, but
it's close enough for use at a faire like this.  Prices slightly better if you
pay in yen ;-)

Mike won 3 necklaces which he called 'girly stuff' as he distainfully put them
on Charlotte, to the squeels of laughter from the other girls.  Charlotte got
him back by lobbing a baseball at him that she had won (boy stuff!) then coyly
watching him play with it the rest of the afternoon.

Terrance showed up for a little bit (the one with the bumb knee just now) and
played 'American Idol'.  I hadnt realized he could sing so well!  He really
can!  He broke into a rendition of a Japanese song that's popular folk music
here and the crowd loved it.  A bit later, a japanese man sang 'Jeramiah was a
bullfrog' to the delight of us all as his kids scampered about making froggy
noises and hopping.

Michelle it turns out has killer good aim with the paintball machine at
targets.  Won a big toy (most of the rest were small things).  You win games
and get red tickets back for each 'win' then exchange those tickets for
prizes. You also get a 'penny prize' at each stall even if you do not 'win' so
the kids are happy.

All in all, a rather nice day!
                                       xxcarol

--- Telegard v3.09.g2-sp4
 * Origin: SHENK'S EXPRESS, Sasebo Japan 81-6160-527330 (6:757/1)