Starting this week I will be getting you up to speed on all of the things that I need to look into and get done before heading off into the land of the rising sun.

I thought that I would start by giving you some information about where I will be living. The area is called Mihama-ku, more specifically it is a newly developed area know as Makuhari New City, which is located midway between Tokyo and Narita Airport on reclaimed land. The city is in Chiba prefecture (one of 47 prefectures in Japan) which is a peninsula on the Pacific Ocean and has a population exceeding 6 million. The photo below in a view from one of the parks in the area - more photos to come once I am actually there…

The Chiba Prefectural website gives some statistics and history of the region dating back to 1873 and notes, among other things, that the main crop of the area was hemp. I find this interesting as most of us think of this as a modern trend.

Chiba-Tour has a lot of good information about sights to see in the Chiba area. What is great is that they have further broken the prefecture down into four regions which will make planning trips a lot easier! Mihama-ku is located in the Bay or Tokatsu Area. There are a lot of things to do without going too far and I am looking forward to visiting many of the spots listed on their site.

I know that I will be spending a fair amount of time at Chiba Marine Stadium and if you read my previous post on grocery shopping you will know why I am very excited to see that there is a French/Japanese grocery store nearby called Carrefour. I will definitely be able to use some “daily-plus-something-extra shopping” as described in the link!!!

I also want to check out the rice paddies in neighboring Minami-Boso - I know it’s stereotypical of Japan but it’s something that I’ve never seen before and looks absolutely stunning!

And then there are the various festivals that are listed on the Chiba Convention Center website. I can hardly wait to start my Chiba adventure and it doesn’t look like I will get bored.