I went to the Yokosuka US Military Base Open Day in 2018

the U.S. Military Base Open Day Event Report is not the place for this, so I thought I'd use this blog again after a long time.

The reason is that I no longer buy energy drinks when I go to the U.S. military base open days. So, it’s no longer quite in line with the purpose of Energy Drink Journey.

This summer, the sweltering heat of over 40°C continued, and as usual, the summer U.S. military base open days were hell. This year, it felt dangerously hot enough that I thought people might actually die every day. As expected, it was another exceptionally hot day.

This time, there were a lot of men carrying parasols, and I think the number of parasol-wielding men at future summer base open days will increase. I arrived about an hour before the opening, and when I was waiting with my parasol, the entry started an hour earlier than planned, which was a relief. The heat from the ground was so intense that the parasol wasn’t enough anymore.

First, I headed to the familiar NEX sales area.

I came to Yokosuka hoping to find the Red Bull camouflage can that I mentioned in a news article the day before, but as expected, it wasn’t available. Maybe it's available at other bases? I'm not sure, but once again, there was nothing to buy in terms of energy drinks. By the way, the person in front of me was taking a lot of pictures, haha.

Here's what the sales area looked like right after the opening.

The energy drink section was crowded, while the candy and snack sections were completely empty, haha.

There were a lot of people with carts, suitcases, and young people. There were also groups of people who were either businesspeople or just really enthusiastic about bulk buying. I guess this is a common sight, huh? (^_^;)

So first, I grabbed a beer, haha.

With energy drinks costing 300 yen and beer at 350 yen, even an energy drink enthusiast like me would go for the beer, right? Haha.

After relaxing for a bit, I walked all the way to the back of the area.

Personally, I like the tents on this side. The items for sale weren't particularly different or cheaper, but I just like this atmosphere. It felt kind of like a laid-back garage sale in front of someone's house, maybe? (●´ω｀●)

By the way, at the back, there were Monster Energy's USO can on display. I saw someone buying a whole case of those and a case of Rockstar, I think, loaded on a cart, haha. People who missed out in 2016 might have been happy to find it, but buying a whole case? I bought one myself back in the day, too, haha.

I wandered through other tents as well, and the selection was pretty much the usual.

It was so hot, so I grabbed a Mountain Dew. It was only 100 yen a bottle, so I drank it while walking around, chatting with the people at the tents, and picking up various items that are hard to find even in the U.S. before heading out. But man, it was hot.

I usually buy more energy drinks than I can drink during my trips, so at the military base, I ended up not buying energy drinks, but other stuff instead. I’ve started going to these open days for different reasons now, haha. The same thing happened during the Independence Day event in Zama, where I didn’t even touch any energy drinks, so I didn’t write about it on Energy Drink Journey.

So, if I end up buying energy drinks at a military base again, I’ll write about it on the U.S. Military Base Open Day Event Report.