Pacific exchanges weather early Black Friday crowds

[unhappycamper]

Customers check out the merchandise in the electronics section of the Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, exchange on Black Friday. Shoppers flocked to base exchanges around the world on the traditional first day of the Christmas shopping season ... although at Naples, Italy, it took some doing to get around striking base workers.


Pacific exchanges weather early Black Friday crowds
By Bryce S. Dubee, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, November 30, 2008

Chilly weather and lack of sleep didn’t deter shoppers across Pacific bases from standing for hours outside exchanges to get an early jump on Black Friday.

In South Korea, a severely weakened won also has drawn many U.S. customers to off-base shops.

Jennifer Fitzgerald and a friend began waiting at 10 p.m. Thursday outside Okinawa’s Kadena Air Base exchange, where the first 100 in line would receive gift cards when the store opened. Despite a chill in the air, others filed in behind them. By 6 a.m. several hundred were waiting for the doors to open.

"It was cold for Okinawa," Fitzgerald said. "We were freezing."

At Yokota Air Base in mainland Japan, Mark Neeley, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service main store manager, said a long line greeted him when he arrived to open up.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59121