September 22nd, 2009
The dirge of Chiba
It’s not polite to say so really, but there is an overpowering atmosphere that causes me to label Chiba as depressing. It’s virtually always overcast or hazy, endless flat tracks of land strung togetehr by giant warehouses, outlet centers and parking lots. The entire infrastructure is drab and tasteless, not in a charmingly classic way, but old in a “lost future oh I could have been something” kind of way.
The trains and stations are just as depressing, stations just far enough apart that it seems you should get somewhere for all the time, but no, it never changes. The same faded, pastel people at every station, the same deflated expressions. They live in Chiba, they know they’re trapped by family or cheap real estate or a lost promise of tomorrow. The lost dreams of the once righteous now quiet Chiba, acquiescence drains its residents daily like it does me just riding this train. The endless hours they spend waiting in traffic for the most mundane of errands weigh upon every eyelid in the prefecture.
Kanagawa is infinitely more interesting and Chiba knows it.
