OK, so I only went to Chiba so I could use that title, why the hell not?
Knowing full well that there was a bank holiday coming up I asked one of the people at work about bank holidays. She just looked at me blankly and said they were open just like normal and didn’t have any special days off. Oops, I should have known that our term wasn’t going to be widely understood, but we soon cleared up the confusion and I’ve now got a list of national holidays so I know when I’m not expected to be in the office.
I bought a couple of magazines to see how different they were over here, not sure I’ve really gotten that much out of them but they’re quite interesting none-the-less, one car mag celebrating the 70year history of Nissan and one random computer magazine, which comes with a ‘cover disk’ (which is actually tucked away inside) with some Japanese versions of odd pieces of software on.
This morning saw me attempting to find Aoyama, I found Killer Street and an Architecture Museum (I assume these are not directly related) but managed to turn the wrong way and end up back in Harajuku. Oh well, only one thing for it…time for coffee.
Chiba lies to the east of the city, on the line that runs from Sendagaya. For the first few miles the track follows either a canal or a river (not sure which) which is a nasty green colour. Theres a small fishing centre near one of the stations, with little gangways covered with crates for fishers to sit on.
Further on there are some railway sidings right by one of the stations, I’ll have to head down there sometime to take a look at some of the trains…I wonder if they have trainspotters over here too? Not that I’m into that sort of thing, its just that all of their trains are different here.
Eventually the train arrived at Chiba, jeez, thats a bit of a longer trip than I’d expected. The first place I head to is the shopping arcade, as it looks like its gonna try to rain outside. The arcade stretches out from the station in a long narrow way, it takes me a while to realise that its filling in the space underneath the tracks. After a while I come to the next station and think that its probably time to be changing direction.
After turning left I wonder what those big concrete girders across the street at the next junction are. With perfect timing two monorail trains emerge, one in each direction.
Partly I’m on the look out for the kind of place Dr Bob would have trained, I happen upon a strange boulevaud area which reminded of some of the more wild-west-ish places we visited in Canada, but with piped music to speakers all down the road. This is the right kind of sleazey atmosphere, but I’m here at the wrong time of day…or the wrong time of year. Dammit, I could do with my reactions being jacked, even 25% would do the job for the moment, I’m feeling kinda slow.
Just around the corner from this street all my suspiscions are confirmed when I find a vintage toaster shop. These people are weird.
There are rumours of a gig tomorrow night down in Kawasaki, but I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to get a ticket, or find the place, or understand how to get in…we’ll see.
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