Day 5, Iruma Airshow, 03/11
 Once
again we got up early on the 5th day of our trip, because
that we would have our first Japanese Airshow at Iruma.
Japanese friends we met the year before in Europehave told
us that they have never been to Iruma, because "there
are too many people". We could not understand that totally,
but we should learn during the course of the day! Though the
airfield in the middle of the suburbs of Tokyo we found it
quite easily and soon got stuck in a traffic jam, which led
to a parking place. Of course we were more clever, drove by
and were looking for another lace to park our car nearby.
In a small street we finally discovered a space and parked
there. As we got of the car a Japanese woman was shouting
at us, but we could not understand her. She also tried to
speak English, but everything we understood was "…friend…".
Well, nothing serious, as the signs did not indicate that
it was forbidden to park there, so we continued to get our
bagpacks and ladders out of the van and went to the queue
to get. It was 7 o'clock in the morning…
 There
were already quite a lot of people who also arrived from Tokyo
by train and we realized that airshow freaks of the far east
did not differ that much. We saw stepladders, vests and caps
with patches, radio scanners and so on. However the procedure
to get in was really really strange. Officially the show opened
at 9a.m., but already one our earlier the queue began to move.
But only a little bit inside and was stopped a bit afterwards.
As this was repeated three times we suspecetd that they did
not want the people stand on the street outside. In the meantime
it also became cramped and we could not nearly move, furthermore
the typical Japanese politeliness seemed to have dissappeard
as everything was trying to be as ahead as possible. While
waiting I also stepped on the ladder and took a photo of the
crowd from above. The people look  amazed
as they supposedly did not expect to see an European there.
The stop-and-go-game was reapeted some more times and was
really a pain in the neck, because we could already see the
flightline around one kilometer away.
Suddenly, the rope in front of the queue was lifted and everybody
started to run. It was a real revolt and a battle to be the
first. Some people even stumbled and fell on the ground. Our
only chance not to get overrun was to join in - with no breakfast,
heavy bagpacks and the ladders that was no fun and a real
sportive test. Patrick was a bit behind while Florian and
I kept up with the Japanese and played of our airshow experience
to look for a good photo spot on an unknown airfield wile
running like hell. We spotted a nice corner, settled down
there and recovered from the morning sport.
Exhausted we had a first look at the nice static display:
nearly one type of every JASDF aircraft was present as well
as some helicopters.
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Unfortunately the weather was not very good during the show
with only minor bright spells during which we splitted up
and tried to do our best to get at least some good photos
of the parked aircraft. That was demanding because inthe meantime
the wholeapron was covered with visitors and their plastic
blankets. Of course we tried to be polite and not to step
on them (the blankets ;)), but with only some centimeters
of free space beetwen them and a lot of photos to take we
also stepped on that "private property" several
times, and earned angry looks. Sorry for that, but it was
necessary…
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The flight program was sparse with a lot of local T-4
flying in front of a gray sky, a very impressive 6-ship
formation of C-1s during bad weather as well and other
demos of Iruma based aircraft as the YS-11 flightchecker
or helicopters.
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At the end of the day the Blue Impulse performed, accompagnied
by several thousands of visitors screaming "AAAaaaaaa"
s and "OoooooOOOoooooo"s. That was very amusing
to us and at least they had some sun during their performance.
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For the fly-out of all the guests the weather was bad
again. Unfortunately, because it would have been really great
to capture the departure of the F-15, F-4 and all the helicopters
with the sun. As the last aircraft left, the whole crowd was
fastly sweeped out and we had a look at the souvenirs, but
did not find anything exciting, so we returned to our car
as well.
 Strangely
all the cars around ours had already disappeared and we saw
a small orange plasticbag chained to our bumper. With all
the chalk writing on the street it did not take a lot of time
to realize that we got a ticket. On the notice inside the
bag everything was of course written in Kanji. Fortunately
we found a helpful walker who pointed us the way to the nearest
policestation.
Driving there we already calculated how much our vacation
fund would shrink within the next hour… At the station
we were treated really friendly, but the main problem was
to find someone who speaked English. During this time we explained
our situation several times but only earned questionable looks.
 After
some time an officer disappeared with our papers and we got
a bit worried.  Waiting
some more veeeery long minutes finally an English speaking
policewomen arrived to whom we could explain the situation
once more. We learned that they have been called (guess by
whom…) because we 'blocked' someones doorway. With the
help of the photos the police has taken we argued that there
was still enough place and no signs around. Fortunately they
agreed on our view and we did not have to pay anything. Only
Xxxxx had to sign a paper stating that he would not park illegally
anymore in Japan. That was OK for us as we had two more drivers
left for the next time ;)
After nearly one hour we left the station relieved but nevertheless
with a strange feeling and continued our drive towards Gifu.
It was foggy and grey and the drive was very tyring. After
some bad food along the highway we found another strange love
hotel (7200Yen) near the airbase, took a shower and slept
well once more.
-> Gifu / Komaki
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