There were over 271,000 people there. As I said before, we expected it to be busy, but had no real idea. We thought we would get lunch at some little stand and then find a place to watch the tug of war. Well, when we encountered this we realized that lunch was going to be a littler trickier than planned. After standing in front of the first food stand we saw, because- get real, we weren't going to go searching, I wanted to get lo mein and Jason wanted a Japanese pancake. The lo mein was already all boxed up and ready to go. I saw some "churros" on the table and snatched those up to. While we were waiting for Jason's pancake to get made (well we thought it was Jason's pancake) I bit into a churro. Um... stale, cold, crunchy. NOT a churro. Oh how I love you San Diego. They were 500 yen! What a rip off! After 2 of what we thought were Jason's pancakes were handed off to other Asians we decided that we were going to skip the pancake and we'd have to get him one a different day. After working our way through the crowd and across the street (mind you a stroller is not an easy thing to maneuver in crowds this size) we sat down to eat our lunch.
Colton loves noodles, so in Japan, he's an easy man to please. Noodles galore.
Lining the whole street was a giant rope. I mean GIANT rope.
As you can guess we've never been to a tug of war ceremony before so we didn't know what to expect. We snapped a couple of pics and waited for the madness to ensue around us. Everyone was rushing the rope and the security guards had to whistle and yell some Japanese stuff so that everyone would back up. We just followed their lead.
Above is the picture of everyone retreating back to the side of the road after being scolded :/
We all had to sit on the road and listen to the Mayor of Okinawa talk for what seemed like forever. It was probably really interesting what he was saying, but again, we couldn't understand. Now we know how Colton feels. No wonder he doesn't just want to sit around watching TV all day.
There was a little parade down the street of these men and women holding these banners that I'm guessing were quite heavy. They were about 2 stories tall and people had the tied into their waist bands. The people around them had these little "catchers" in case it started to fall. They each had different colors and symbols. We didn't know what they meant and again we couldn't ask anyone... We were glad none fell on us.
Little did we know, the guy we were with was taking part in the rope tugging. We could take part in the rope tugging too! I was on Colton watch so I didn't tug the rope at all (I would've rather been with Colton anyway), the boys had their share of fun.
I'm guessing this is Jason's attempt at the Clay Matthew's "beast" face. Clay looks better... Just sayin'.
When you walked up the rope after the tugging had commenced the Japanese people were eager to be the one to hand their part of the rope off to you. It seemed like some sort of ritual... maybe? Who really knows the truth. We can't ask anyone.
When the 30 minutes of war was over they declared our side the winner! The rope had only moved a few inches. Even with hundreds of thousands of people pulling. When the rope did inch one way or the other it rumbled the ground. That is one heavy rope. Everyone started slicing off parts of the rope. Our friend got a piece!
Some people went nuts and took almost whole sections. When we were leaving people had almost too much to carry. It is handmade, but its not even a real rope. Its just straw strung together really, really tightly.
After the war was over everyone was standing around talking and celebrating and we thought it was a great time for a photo op:
After this pic there was an Asian woman who was talking to Colton in Japanese. She must have thought he was pretty darn cute - well he is. She decided we needed a pic with these:
Colton is looking at Dad like, "Do I look as stupid as you?" Daddy didn't care how stupid he looked. You never really know for sure what's gonna happen here.
The Marines aren't allowed to drink off base on Island unless it is "dinner time." Then they are allowed to have 2 drinks out in town and are to go straight home. I always say, "Get real. No one will know you're drinking. You'll never run into anyone you know in these crowds. As long as you're not making a complete ass of yourself you won't get caught." Well on our way out the boys ran inside to get some water and guess who Jason found! His Master Gunnery Sergeant (his bosses's boss). Well, good thing he didn't take my advice. It's probably the ONLY time Ill be wrong :)
