The Futenma Friendship Flightline Fair is on once again! This is my third time. We shut down the runway, and Saturday and Sunday the taxiway and parking ramps get a stage, carnival rides, and lots of stalls with food and goodies. An exemplar of every aircraft and ground vehicle on the island gets parked at one end, and locals can get inside and take photos.

This year the big hit was inflatable swords. There are kids everywhere whacking each other. Cultural barriers are falling before my eyes.

Also, a subset of Japanese teenage girls love getting dressed up and going out in public to get admired, and the young Marines are more than willing to do the admiring.

I took in the Zampa Eisa show at the stage, which is the Okinawan drumming and dancing tradition. It was only a small group this time, about a dozen. There's another show tomorrow, I hope it's a bigger group. (Last year's eisa group was about forty strong.) Eisa is big on the island. Two weeks ago down in Naha was the annual "10,000 Eisa March", where every town's eisa team paraded. I went to see it, and had fun, but I didn't take any photos because it was pouring rain all day. (I also forgot to mention it until now.)

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