How It Was Like in June 24 Protest Against Ooi Restart and PM Noda in Funabashi (PM Noda's Hometown)

I watched bits and pieces of the USTREAM live stream and it was fun. I was laughing as I watched. Here's a report from one of the readers of this blog who was there, and it seems it was indeed fun:

Hello everyone, I was there and it was fun ! People on the streets looked absolutely stunned, like it was the first demonstration of their life (and possibly so!). But many smiled or waved back to us, though I also saw some of them obviously not satisfied with the demonstration (I'm thinking about one particular elderly lady who shaked her head saying "No!" to us). The music was great, the slogans too. There was a young man, mike in hands, who used the shops'names or buildings'names to shout slogans, and it was irresistibly funny, like (near a hairdresser's) : "Let's save the hairdresser from radiations! Let's save him from Noda!" or: (near a sake and tobacco shop) : "Let's save tobacco ! let's save it from radioactivity ! Let's save it from Noda! Let's protect sake! Let's protect it from radiations!" The Suginami-ku group is just so full of energy and so creative (always), it's very exciting to be around them ! Good deed and good time altogether.

By the way, to answer the question: yes, we rode the SOBU sen in big numbers, especially in the front car of the train. When I was at Shinjuku station, waiting for the 13:04 train, I spotted a few people wearing yellow (like myself) and talked to a gentleman who was obviously also going to NishiFunabashi (in a yellow Tee Shirt, with a yellow ribbon around his hat). We rode the train together and talked all the way about nuclear plants in Japan and in France and about how to convince people to take part into demonstrations in bigger numbers.
Everyone was very, very friendly and I spotted people I met before in demonstrations elsewhere.

To round up the good time, as I posted as an update yesterday, local pubs in Funabashi decided to offer discounts to demonstrators for a drink after the 2-hour walk. Smart. Good "imprinting" too - out-of-town people who come for anti-nuke demonstration are good for local businesses.

Asahi Shinbun reported on this protest, perhaps because the number of participants was safely below 10,000, with this picture:

The caption of the photo says:

Participants holding up the portraits of Prime Minister Noda and protesting against the restart of nuclear power plants, walking in the prime minister's constituency.

They do look like they are having a good time.

(H/T Reader 'Janick' who was there)

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