Fleet week in San Francisco 2011

Last weekend, I went to San Francisco to enjoy Fleet week, Navy Airshow, together with my senior who is very familiar with military related things..

I thought we needed to buy tickets for dedicated seats at first when I was planning , but I concerned bad weather seriously because weather was not so fine since early October. Therefore, I did not buy them actually in case for rainy weather.

Fortunately, it was very good weather from early morning. This was really rare because weather at San Francisco was usually fog at morning even in summer season. Although it is less than one year since I came here, but I'm sure of it because I always watch weather forecast which is from Golden Gate Bridge in TV everyday.
Although air show would start at 12:30, we left south bay at noon at that day because our main purpose was to enjoy blue angels performance at first. As we approached to San Francisco, we could noticed that airshow started because we could see some aircraft fly above the city from highway 280. At the same time, I noticed that we were approaching the tail of  long lines of cars ahead to exit, so I though that parking lots near main locations would be already occupied and it would be difficult to find a space to park my car, so  I immediately decided to park my car near Union-Square which is a little bit far from main locations close to Golden Gate Bridge. It's mainly because I had not ever seen such a heavy traffic condition on highway 280 at weekend noon.
After parking the car, we walked to main locations between Golden Gate Bridge and Pier 39, which took around 40 minutes by walk in one way. Those who have visited the city of San Francisco before may know how hard it is to walk there for long distance because there are a lots of steep hills in the city. I can say walking was almost like a light trail in the city. After the exercise, I finally got to the locations, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Additionally we got to know that our previous decision was correct because every parking lots were already full. When we reached the park, there were still space left and we laid our seat on the grass to sit down there. As soon as we started to enjoy to watch air show, FA-18 started to fly and a lot of people enjoyed very much because it was very fast and really close to us. The most surprising thing is that the city of San Francisco permitted that such a huge and fast aircraft can fly over the big city to show its grate performance and enjoy people. This kind of air show in cities would be not acceptable in Japan because Japanese government concern possible accidents. Off course, it is permitted in local areas like outside urban area. Well, finally we enjoyed blue angels performance. They are trained well and showed us how skilled they are to fly over closely each other. However, the missing show was that of B2 stealth boomer. I knew that regrettably when I got home and watched TV.

Here is the link to main page for Fleet Week 2011
http://www.fleetweek.us/page_airshow.html
If you miss this year airshow, do not worry. This takes place every year so enjoy next time though you needs to be patient for one year.