chiba

I had forgotten about Chiba. I hadn't been out east of Tokyo, deep into the motherland of Chiba, for a long time. So I purposely took JR so that I could relive my old Chiba days. With my iPod filled and the train afternoon empty, I stood at the front and watched the conductor navigate us across the river and over to Chiba Station. Got off and switched trains, marvelling at how much the station had not changed, and I stared at the monorail waiting for the airport express.
Again an empty train and I smiled at myself knowingly as I counted off the stations approaching Narita. Made it to the airport in good time and met Tony quickly. We had to wait for Dave who was to arrive a couple of hours later, so we headed upstairs to Royal Host for a quick lunch.
Dave's plane was a bit early, meaning the Narita's one-runway system was all confused, forcing them to circle and taxi for an hour before finally getting a gate to pull into. He finally came out about 6:00pm, so we got bus tickets and headed to the ANA Hotel. James messed up his tickets and was still in China, Jim's luggage somehow ended up in Texas, but other than that the flights were uneventful.
We entertained the bus with our backseat antics and the evening traffic was lite so we got home by 8pm -- too late to go to practice so we settled in and got ready for dinner. Hiroko came back about 9pm and we had a big Sukiyaki fest. After deciding on tomorrow's schedule, Tony pulled out his bargain China DVDs and we put in 8 Mile before crashing.