-Walk across the Park to the East Side to see where all the noise was coming from - CHECK!
And once I got to the East Meadow, I found myself in the middle of the Japan Day celebration. I had always wanted to attend Japan Day, and, of course, the one year that I didn't see any ads for it, I just happen to stumble upon it by chance.
They had a big stage set up, and different performers were scheduled throughout the day. Around the perimeter, they had different booths set up featuring a different aspect of culture, everything from origami to harajuku, to basket weaving, to kimono folding. And, of course, they also had food...
Now this was the most interesting part of the celebration to me - and not for the reason you may be thinking right now. They had different stations set up serving different foods: miso soup, udon noodles, teriyaki, sushi, etc. Each station had their own line, and there was a volunteer holding up a sign indicating where the the end of each line was. I really wasn't hungry at the time, and the lines were quite long, but I noticed that no one was handing any money over to the servers. So, I asked one of the line volunteers where to buy a wristband or food tickets: "All the food is free." WOW!! There were a LOT of people, and there was a LOT of food being served.
Domo arigato gozaimasu.