WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26TH AND THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27TH – USA TO JAPAN:
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I was very lucky to have my children and grandchildren at my home for Christmas Dinner. After spending two days in the kitchen cooking a truly “Southern” Christmas Dinner, everything came together for a very special Christmas gathering.
Very, very early this morning, the participants in the 11th Annual New Year’s Eve Improv Tour – Dave Price, Michael Hitchcock, Jordan Black, Lauren Adams, Ben Warheit and Jordan Bross – headed for airports throughout the USA. I never went to bed since I had to be ready to leave for the airport at 3:30 am today. Lauren departed DC, Michael departed Chicago, and Jordan departed Atlanta. We all met in the Minneapolis Airport – all flights on time and no weather issues which are my main concerns at this time of the year. So great to see them all again! Dave, Ben and Jordan Bross departed New York on a direct flight to Tokyo this morning and their flight also departed on time.
The aircraft from Minneapolis to Tokyo Haneda is one of the newly refurbished versions with “Suites” in First Class….really nice. Flight attendants and pilots are super nice as well. Delta announced pre-boarding for active duty military and I think half the passengers on the flight boarded. I’m sure they have been home for Christmas and now returning to their bases in Japan and Okinawa. Hopefully we’ll see some of them at our shows.
Our first stop will be at Camp Fuji – about a 2 hour drive from the Tokyo Haneda Airport. We land on the 27th and will perform there on the 28th. It’s going to be “cold” at Camp Fuji with highs in the 40s and lows in the 30s. And as a “by the way” a couple of days before Christmas, we were informed that the venue where they will be performing does not have “heat”! No problem…we’ve dealt with worse in Iraq and at least no one will be shooting at us during this tour.
We fly to Okinawa on the 29th and perform 4 shows there on the 29th, 30th, 31st and 1st. Then fly home on the 2nd. The bases will be:
29th: Camp Hansen
30th: Camp Foster
31st: Camp Kinser
1st: Camp Schwab
I’ve visited all the bases in the past and looking forward to being there again. If anyone reading this report is in Okinawa or at Camp Fuji or has friends/family deployed there, please tell them about the shows and have them look me up!
This is definitely the nicest aircraft I have flown with Delta. They actually have plenty of space to store your personal items in the seat beside you. I watched one movie and ate dinner. Then slept for 4 hours and worked on the WiFi (which surprisingly let me log on my first attempt!). Had a very light breakfast while I watched yet another movie and we landed on time. The pilot thanked our group for coming over to entertain the troops over the holidays in his final announcement which was so nice and unexpected.
We landed on time and all our luggage arrived with us. We immediately went to the area to store our bags as we were told that our “host” would not arrive until the second flight arrived from New York. We were able to store all our luggage and walked around in the shops for a while. Then, we decided to eat a bowl of Udon while waiting for the NYC passengers to arrive. We ran a little late eating and the flight landed as everyone was finishing up. I left them and went down to meet everyone and to find our “host”. I saw her almost immediately with a sign for MCCS. Her name is Kayoko and she is truly LOVELY. She grabbed me and hugged me and started telling me how worried she had been. I had no idea what she was talking about but she explained that she had arrive to meet our flight 2 hours earlier and when no one approached her was afraid we were not coming. She had us paged 5 times but since we had already gone to the upper level, we didn’t hear her. I double-checked the information Okinawa had sent me the day before and I had definitely been advised that she would arrive with the bus and driver at the time the NYC passengers arrived. I felt so bad for her!
Dave, Jordan and Ben got all their luggage and equipment and we retrieved our luggage from storage. Made one quick stop to purchase water for the bus and then we had a 2 ½ to 3 hours bus ride to Camp Fuji. No problem getting on the base and Kayoko had brought our room keys with her since the “office” would be closed when we arrived. She also stopped at the club on base and picked up “to go” food for us to take to our rooms.
The rooms are nice and typical “base lodging” but they were COLD. Took us a while to figure out how to turn on the heat. Basically, it is a switch on the wall that says, “This is not A/C”. LOL. Next challenge was finding a hair dryer. The website said each room has a hair dryer and the information on the table in each room also says that each room has a hair dryer. I searched everywhere and could find one. The office won’t open back up until 10:30 am and our lobby call is at 10 am. I went to a couple of the guys rooms and they didn’t have one either. I call Kayoko but she had no idea where the hair dryers might be either. So I’m sitting here typing up this road report waiting for my hair to dry naturally so I can go to bed. ☹
More tomorrow….
Jude
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28TH – CAMP FUJI, JAPAN:
It was the “typical” first night of sleep after a 12 hour flight – woke up every hour on the hour. But, I did go right back to sleep each time. It took 2 ½ hours for my hair to dry so I only got 5 hours of sleep but that was enough. One reason I couldn’t sleep is because it was freezing cold in the room. There is a tiny “heater” in the ceiling but it just wasn’t enough to warm the room. I was up at 7 am and worked for 3 hours until time to go to “Brunch” at the Club. After we ate, everyone went into the Exchange and purchased some local “food items” like 100 different flavors of Kit Kat, Pocky, etc., etc. Lauren and I walked over to the base “tour” office and got some information on a “park” area that was within walking distance – about 2 ½ miles away.
It is bitterly cold outside, so we all bundled up for the walk. It was on a road where we only saw a couple of vehicles and both sides were surrounded by tall fir trees. We actually walked past what appeared to be a very old shrine and stopped to take some photos there. Finally made it to the “park” area and Lauren and Ben decided to use the “hot springs”. I’ve been to one of those in Japan before and I promise you, it was so hot I thought I could “walk on water” to get out of it. The rest of us went to a restaurant and had quite the adventure trying to order from a “vending” type machine that was all in Japanese. Even the people working there did not speak English. Bross speaks a little Japanese – more than I do – and was able to help us tremendously. We walked outside after eating and took photos in front of Mt. Fuji. The “clouds” cooperated for the most part and most of the Mount was visible.
We decided to take taxis back to the base and left Lauren and Ben still in the hot springs. Had another great photo op of Mt. Fuji at the base gate.
Bross left at 4:15 pm to go over to the club to “set up”. SSgt Cagle has been escorting us all day and is a sweetheart. He did say that “temporary heating” has been installed in the Club where we are performing tonight so that’s a great surprise. Evidently, the heating system broke in November and they have not been able to find anyone who can “fix” it!
We left lodging at 6 pm for the venue and were supposed to do a “mic check”. But somehow we “forgot” and went straight to dinner. After dinner, there were too many people in the club to do the mic check. There were a few “bumps” at the beginning of the show but Jordan quickly got everything under control. It was a huge crowd – much bigger than we expected on a holiday weekend….all Marines except for one guy in the Navy. Very boisterous, appreciative audience, too. It was a great night and fantastic first show to kick off the tour.
The group took photos with everyone in line and gave them an autographed photo. We were back at lodging by 10 pm and have a 4 am lobby call. We land, check in lodging and depart an hour later for a performance at Camp Hansen.
Going to try to get 2 hours of sleep. Probably should just stay up!
Jude
Should never have gone to bed. I had only been asleep one hour when my cell phone rang. Of course the caller ID showed up as “unknown number” and no one left a message. Probably a telemarketer but it woke me up and cut into my 2 hours of sleep. Everyone was ready to go at 4 am and I thought I would catch another couple of hours of sleep on the bus. But, there was no traffic and instead of 2 to 2 ½ hours, the drive only took us 1 ½ hours. We got checked in and then headed through security and in search of a restaurant. The nicest restaurant was the one where we had tried to eat when I was at the airport in October. I finally remembered that there was no entrance after going through security. Strange because the restaurant is losing tons of money from passengers.
Several of the group wanted curry or noodles and Michael and I were in search of a “real” breakfast. Eggs and muffins, etc., just didn’t seem to exist. We finally went into a lounge that allowed passengers to enter with an American Express card. Only it had to be an American Express card issued in Japan! I ended up paying $10 each for us to go in and have coffee and a croissant…but it was better than noodles for breakfast.
The flight left on time and business class was more like premium economy class. The flight was already almost full when I booked the tickets and I was unable to get an aisle seat for everyone. Half the passengers getting on the flight wore the “surgeons” masks which mean they had a cold. But….they took the masks off to drink so I’m not sure how much good they were. They were also really layered up with clothing and it was HOT on the airplane. The man sitting next to me had the window shade raised and the sun was blaring in on my legs. I finally asked the flight attendant to please ask him to lower the shade. He lowered it about an inch and that didn’t help at all. Then he fell asleep and slept the rest of the flight. I should have pulled it down while he was sleeping!
We started our descent but probably flew at about 3,000 feet for almost 30 minutes. Guess we were circling for some reason but it was unnerving because the pilots didn’t make any announcements about what was going on. We finally landed — late – and Gielenn (“G” for short) was there to meet us. It was about an hour drive from the airport to Camp Foster and as soon as we pulled in the gate, I realized I had stayed here with Aaron Tippin and with Chase Rice.
Lodging is great and they finally have the WiFi fixed in each room. But we needed a password. I walked over to the building next door where the “office” is located and got the password. Evidently everyone but me had a little sign on their desk giving them the password.
It was freezing in our rooms, so Dave and I called to see what could be done to raise the thermostat. Also, I had no cell phone service in my room, but had 4 bars in Dave’s room across the hall. I called the front desk and they moved me to a room on Dave’s side of the lodging. We were also informed that the thermostats are “centrally controlled” and the base commander decides on the temperature – which in our case was 64 degrees! They gave us extra blankets for tonight.
We left for Camp Hansen and it was about a 1 hour drive. I have been there twice recently but our shows were outside previously. This time they were inside in a great room. They took us upstairs first to order dinner while Jordan got loaded in. I remembered the “green room” from my visit with Chase Rice.
Dinner was excellent as it was on both my previous visits. This time we remembered to do a “mic check” before the doors were opened. Dureil – the head of MCCS and the person who agreed to bring us here – arrived just before show time and met everyone.
The crowd was great – even better than late night basically because the audience was a little older and the Marines had brought their wives with them. I sat in the back of the room “watching” for most of the show. At one point, a lady in front of me was leaning back laughing so hard that she also turned over in her chair. It’s great to see these Marines enjoying themselves so much. And our hosts – Dureil, “G”, Mika, Yuji, all the staff at the Palms restaurant, everyone – have been so great to us!
The comedians took photos with everyone and signed photos after the show. We were back in lodging by 10 pm. The restaurant where we will eat our meals (Terre Restaurant — formerly Macaroni Grill when I visited in the pass) has a Sunday Brunch from 8 am until 2 pm, so everyone plans to sleep in. There is a great shopping mall connected to the base exchange, so I’ll try to get over there tomorrow before we depart for our show which will take place here on Camp Foster.
So tired and going to bed!
Jude
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30TH AT CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA
Going to bed at 11:30 p.m. means waking up at 5:30 a.m. for me. It was freezing cold all night long and I slept with three blankets, a comforter, a sheet, long underwear and flannel pajamas. It was still dark when I woke up so I waited a while and worked on some emails. It was pretty cloudy but I really wanted to jog outside. I walked next door to the main building and checked out their small Fitness room but decided I would try to jog.
It was a wonderful jog in perfect temperature. I remembered the way from my previous visits hers but I still got lost as I figured I would. Instead of running for 30 minutes I ended up running an hour and at least five miles.
I stopped by the restaurant lodging and found most of our group breakfast. They are going to walk down to the waterfront after they eat. I went to lodging and took a shower and then headed over restaurant where brunch was still being served. Had a great omelet and then walked over to the base shopping area.
Found most just what I needed so I shouldn’t have to shop anymore on base. Worked on emails until time to go to the show at 5 pm. It was only about a 10 minute drive to the “Ocean Breeze” where the show would take place on Camp Foster.
The comedians did a quick mic check and then we had dinner. The restaurant actually had a “KETO Diet” which was great! I had the chicken piccata and it was delicious. The show started at 7 pm and it was a very full house. The Club was overwhelmed because everyone ordered food and they weren’t prepared for so many people.
Have to say, this was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen by our group. Having a great audience helped! Made for a very fun night for everyone. They took photos with attendees in the lobby for about an hour. A lady approached me and said she is the High School Drama teacher. She wanted to know if we would be willing to do a “workshop” for her students while we are here. I told her that we had offered to do a workshop every day but that none had been set. I checked with the comedians and, of course, they are receptive. She’s going to contact her students and if enough are available, we will hold the workshop at the High School at 12 noon on January 1st.
All in all…a truly great evening! Going to get in bed by 11:30 pm again tonight which means I’ll be awake long before dawn. ☹
Jude
MONDAY, DECEMBER 31ST – PERFORMANCE AT CAMP KINSER – HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Got a great 6 hours of sleep although there was a lot of “wake-ups” in that time period. Walked over to the building next door and got in a fairly good workout based on the equipment available. Then I met a few of the group at the restaurant for breakfast. Several of the group were going outside the gate to have a “different” style of breakfast.
I was going to meet the group later in the morning after they went to the other restaurant. Evidently, most of the shops are closed here today for New Year’s so I ended up meeting them at a Ramen Noodle Restaurant. Wasn’t really any point in walking around anywhere since so many of the businesses were closed, so we went back to Camp at around 1:30 pm. We have a 3:15 pm lobby call for the show tonight at Camp Kinser
It was about a 30 minute drive to Camp Kinser and the show takes place at the Surfside. We had about an hour to kill while Jordan loaded in and no one wanted to go to the PX during our wait. The comedians did a quick mic check and then we ordered dinner. We all wrote down our exact orders yet when we received the food, only a couple of people received what they asked for. I guess the worst mix-up was for Dave. He ordered a veggie burger and they brought him a regular burger. He re-ordered but when they brought the food back, it was the same burger they had previously brought him – right down to the bite he had taken out of the patty! This time I found Shayne – our MCC Host – and asked her to place the order because the staff didn’t understand enough English for us to order a vegetarian burger. The servers brought everyone the rest of their meals that had been mixed up but nothing for Dave. Once again, I had to hike to the kitchen to try and find out what had happened. Finally, right before the group went on stage, they brought his burger and guess what – all beef patty! Dave had already eaten lots of fries, so he just said “forget it”. Guess they are working with a very “skeleton” staff for New Year’s Eve.
The audience was small as we expected since there are New Year’s Eve celebrations all over Okinawa. But, it was a great audience and the comedians gave them another fantastic show. We were back at lodging by 9:30 pm. Lauren is going to a “shrine” where there is a famous NYE celebration and I’m not sure anyone is going with her. We’re all pretty wiped out and just going to bed. We’ll celebrate New Year’s tomorrow when it turns midnight in the USA – that will be at 3 pm my time tomorrow afternoon!
I’m going to get this road report posted and the photos up on Facebook. We are going to be able to do our workshops for the high school students tomorrow at noon and I want to get in another long jog before that.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Jude
TUESDAY, JANUARY 1ST, 2019 – WOW – OUR LAST PERFORMANCE:
I forgot to mention that it was WARM in the venue last night at Camp Kinser. I actually asked the staff “who they paid” to get the heat turned up! Seriously, you cannot believe how miserable it is in our rooms because they are so cold. Even when we climb into bed with our numerous blankets, the sheets are COLD. I wish I had thought earlier to go to the base exchange and purchase a little space heater for everyone. I know they are prohibited in the rooms at lodging, but if they don’t want guests to use them, they should provide heat. Ben was feeling sick tonight and I have a feeling others will follow.
There is an old saying that what you do on New Year’s Day, you will be doing all year long so I try to make the most of the day. I got 6 hours sleep again which was wonderful. Then I ran 4 miles in absolutely perfect weather and had an omelet with some of the group. Showered and met everyone in the lobby at 11:30 for our trip to the local High School. What a great experience that was – not only for the kids but for our group. The kids attending are all in a drama class at the high school and their teacher is amazing. It is so important for us to support not only the men and women serving in the military but also their children and spouses. I asked a couple of the kids how many times they had moved and how many different schools they have attended and they both said they would have to write it down and count it up. Can you even imagine? The comedians and Jordan did a Q&A with them for about 45 minutes and then they actually involved them in a couple of Improv “skits”. Made my day.
The shuttle driver for the Westpac Lodge picked us up at 1:15 pm and took us to Hamasuzhi. That’s the same restaurant I eat in at Misawa when I’m there and I LOVE it. It’s the conveyor belt sushi and is amazing. Everyone loved it and ate soooooo much sushi. But, the total bill was only $85.00 U.S. Unbelievable. It would have cost over $300 in the USA.
We had time to walk over to Lawson’s for a few minutes before we were picked up and we purchased Grape Mentos and some other “delicacies” to take home with us tomorrow.
Jordan had to go to Camp Schwab at 3 pm but rode over with Yama (the Japanese Production Manager). The rest of us had a 5 pm lobby call.
Camp Schwab has a LOT of lodging and is building lots more. It’s right on the water and they are also “reclaiming” land from the water to make the base even bigger. I think it was colder in this venue than any of the others where they have performed! Tomorrow is the first day of school and the first day the Marines have to go back to work VERY early, so the crowd was light. But those who did attend loved the show and the comedians did such a great job.
We were back at lodging a little after 10 pm and have a 7:15 am lobby call for the drive to the airport. Michael and Jordan will fly home to Los Angeles and I’ll fly home to Nashville. Everyone else is staying over for various amounts of time to “sightsee” in Japan.
It has been a great tour and seems to have flown by!
Jude
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2018 – JAPAN TO NASHVILLE:
Everyone was on time for the 7:15 am lobby call and we arrived at the airport in a little less than an hour. We spent a little time “shopping” before going to the gate area then our flight to Haneda boarded on time and it was a full flight again. Flight time was a little over 2 hours and about a half hour before landing we had an “incident”. A tall Japanese guy came down the aisle and he hit my arm rest as he went by. I thought he was a flight attendant and was checking to see if my seat back was all the way up. Then, he made it to the galley but someone was already in the toilet. He just “crumpled” to the floor. Jordan Bross was sitting in the first seat and immediately jumped up and grabbed him before he fell all the way to the floor. He sat and held him upright until the flight attendants could find out what was wrong. First they gave him an air sickness bag and then something to drink. Jordan sat and held him for several minutes. Once he was able to stand, he went into the toilet and stayed for the remainder of the flight. I’m wondering if he was a diabetic since he seemed to get better once he drank something.
Once we landed at Haneda, we had to “split up”. Dave, Ben, Jordan Bross and Lauren were staying in Tokyo for several days. Michael and Jordan Black were flying back to LAX and I was leaving for Nashville.
Since my flight was departing much earlier than Michael and Jordan, I did some last minute shopping and then headed to the Lounge by my departure gate. Only had about 30 minutes in the Lounge and then boarded the fight to Minneapolis. It’s the same aircraft that I flew over on – one of the new ones with the “privacy suites”. It’s nice because it’s possible to begin watching a movie while everyone is still boarding. I watched one movie, ate dinner and then slept for 3 hours. Got up in time to do about 4 hours of work. The amazing – and nice – thing about the flight over and the flight back was the fact that there was very little turbulence.
The nice lady at the Delta Counter in Haneda had been able to enter my bag claim number so that I could access it on my Delta App. Since we had checked in with JAL in Okinawa, my claim number was a JAL number and impossible for me to track my bags. Love that I could now “check” to make sure my bag makes it on the flights with me…although there really doesn’t seem to be anything Delta can do if they don’t!
I had almost 5 hours layover in Minneapolis and used the entire time to work. Hopefully I won’t be up “all” night once I get home. Still depressed that Zac and Zoe will be in Pensacola and I won’t get to see them until Sunday but glad they are having fun on their school break.
The flight from Minneapolis departed on time and it was extremely turbulent for about one of the two hours we were in the air. But we landed safely, my bag arrived and I’m home!
Have to say a special thanks to everyone involved in making this such a great, fun, well-organized, memorable tour. Michael, Jordan Black, Dave, Lauren, and Ben brought some much-needed comic relief to everyone they met. Jordan Bross did an exceptional job working with the local Production Company and getting us set up and sounding good each day. Special thanks to Dureil for accepting and setting up the tour for us through MCCS and to “G”, Shayne, Mika, Yama, Kayoko, “Palm”, and everyone who worked so hard to keep us organized.
Happy New Year!
Jude
