Somehow I never thought I'd be here. I knew we were good, but if you had told me a year ago that the EDTO would even want a school band to play at the launch of their prized Macross, let alone that it would be mine that won the priveledge!
I remember reading once that the planes that carried out the atomic bomb attacks at the end of the second World War had launched from Tinian - which means that this island has ended two wars, one then and another later, by catching the Macross.
Speaking of which, I had to yell at Clara today - even if it does rhyme with a sport, Macross is a good name! The last survivor of her crew, alone, guides her shattered ship in to a safe landing, only living long enough to gasp out her own name to the first exploration team to reach her, and with her last breath, yet... I mean, how much more appropriate can you expect to be? It's romantic, dammit!
So, anyway, when we got off the plane at the runway, the ship was the first thing you noticed. I could go on and on about what its numbers are like - it's so famous I can't think of anyone who couldn't - and I've seen pictures, of course, but until you can actually see what an artificial mountain a kilometer tall and nine long looks like, there's nothing that can really bring home the way it dominates the landscape. A couple of the flutes got all vapory about how it made them feel like it was looming over them and about to fall, but they were those same two who always kept having student-teacher fantasies about Mr. Ramius, so I don't think even he took them seriously.
Then we suffered through customs - and honestly, does anyone really believe that some whacko would try and smuggle a bomb in in a tuba case at this late date? - and then got stuffed into our hotel. There must be at least five times as many people crammed onto Tinian as the island's usually got, and boy is it showing in the quality of the accommodations! Once we got over fighting about who slept where, the rest of the clarinets were all set to leave and go shopping and I had a hell of a time convincing them to learn the local shelters. I know I'm a little paranoid about that, maybe, but after the tanks blew don't I have a right? {Ed. Note: A reference to the Dec. 9, 2043 OTO cruise missile strike against the Singapore Fleet Base's fuel depot.}
And then we went shopping and it was impossibly crowded and tiring, so I'm going to leave you here and cover that in the morning.
-From the Diary of Ningshui Jialan, August 27, 2051
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
I remember reading once that the planes that carried out the atomic bomb attacks at the end of the second World War had launched from Tinian - which means that this island has ended two wars, one then and another later, by catching the Macross.
Speaking of which, I had to yell at Clara today - even if it does rhyme with a sport, Macross is a good name! The last survivor of her crew, alone, guides her shattered ship in to a safe landing, only living long enough to gasp out her own name to the first exploration team to reach her, and with her last breath, yet... I mean, how much more appropriate can you expect to be? It's romantic, dammit!
So, anyway, when we got off the plane at the runway, the ship was the first thing you noticed. I could go on and on about what its numbers are like - it's so famous I can't think of anyone who couldn't - and I've seen pictures, of course, but until you can actually see what an artificial mountain a kilometer tall and nine long looks like, there's nothing that can really bring home the way it dominates the landscape. A couple of the flutes got all vapory about how it made them feel like it was looming over them and about to fall, but they were those same two who always kept having student-teacher fantasies about Mr. Ramius, so I don't think even he took them seriously.
Then we suffered through customs - and honestly, does anyone really believe that some whacko would try and smuggle a bomb in in a tuba case at this late date? - and then got stuffed into our hotel. There must be at least five times as many people crammed onto Tinian as the island's usually got, and boy is it showing in the quality of the accommodations! Once we got over fighting about who slept where, the rest of the clarinets were all set to leave and go shopping and I had a hell of a time convincing them to learn the local shelters. I know I'm a little paranoid about that, maybe, but after the tanks blew don't I have a right? {Ed. Note: A reference to the Dec. 9, 2043 OTO cruise missile strike against the Singapore Fleet Base's fuel depot.}
And then we went shopping and it was impossibly crowded and tiring, so I'm going to leave you here and cover that in the morning.
-From the Diary of Ningshui Jialan, August 27, 2051
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."