Post #803038 by SouthSeasKat on Thu, Apr 21, 2022 1:22 AM

The Makuhari Club is my studio apartment (actually technically a 1 bedroom if you can believe that, by urban Japanese standards) in Makuhari, Chiba, Japan. It isn't full on Tiki for several reasons, but think of it as a Mid-Century Modern studio condo with intentional tiki accents in one of the resort style communities in San Diego or Van Nuys or Palm Springs, or even a bit more inland on Hawaii or Guam, I suppose. More of a lounge than a bar. Between my father's 24 years in the Air Force and my own travels I have a lot of knickknacks from around Asia/Pacific. So I am slowly adding stuff.

A different kind of vacation space than many of the home tiki builds, perhaps because I actually DO live on a Pacific island. Honshu is a Pacific island. And as I live on the Chiba peninsula, which is more like a smaller island, it is far more subtropical or tropical than say... Gunma or Nagano which are... very much mountainous in the middle of Honshu.

Makuhari is a seaside commercial and residential community about 90 minutes commute from central Tokyo, about 45 minutes from the fandom and electronics hub of Akihabara. Affluent and on the rise, it has three sections: beach side, which includes the Zozo Stadium where the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team plays, a major resort hotel (APA), and lots of really nice high rise condos that I would get charged just for looking at too long. Ironically, as an urban beach, it has serious issues with cleanliness, so I don't actually use my own neighborhood beach, I go to beaches on the other side of the peninsula. Between the two train lines (commercial high-rises, downtown area, shopping districts like the mall, the Costco, and Home/Cainz, our answer to Home Depot or Lowes, and the convention center where the Tokyo Video Game Expo and the Tokyo Auto Salon are held) and residential on the other side of the second train line. I live in the residential. I have a nice "cityscape" view of the "between the tracks" "downtown" but no view of the beach itself. I am situated on a hill above one of the canals.

Starting around this time of year, the area gets muggy, rainy, hot in the day, colder at night. It will stay hot and humid until about October, when it will lose humidity, and depending on sun exposure may nor may not stay hot. Last year was amazing, because the first two weeks of October were lower humidity, higher temperature... so beach time... in October. Fantastic. Winters are mild, except in January and February where significant snow (in my opinion) is not only possible, but likely.

For most of the year, however, the area is lush with overgrown greenery and there are many palm trees. Palm tree pups start popping up in public walkways along the canals (such as mine), and the city will just mow them over. This year, I have decided to save some of them and relocate them. Free palms! Who could say no to free palms!

[ Edited by SouthSeasKat on 2022-04-21 02:15:04 ]