Narita

Main street of Narita, near the temple

 Narita Airport, it turns out, is not dissimilar to the airport in KL. It’s a long way from the city proper, the humidity is 94%, and it’s extremely green, mainly with rampant bamboo, but also half a dozen golf courses and plenty of rice fields. In fact, the imperial rice fields, possibly amongst others.

Buddha demonstrating equanimity in the rain

 We transited here overnight, but actually we had 24 hours which turned out to be plenty of time for some pleasant and leisurely sightseeing. Narita Airport dates back to 1970 and the town/village has been increasing its commitment to suburbanity ever since. At first glance it seems like it might be a bit like Tullamarine (with extra bamboo), but actually somebody in the town planning department has done a nice job of carving out a very pleasant tourist day-spot, with a very large temple complex, restored nicely and still operating as a temple, complete with monks, drums, incense, and chanting. And rain. But it’s warm rain and by the time we’d sat on the bus getting back to the hotel we were already dry.

Stele in the grounds of the temple

The town centre is small, just a main street which struggles to get started, and mainly features restaurants and food/souvenir shops. I was a bit surprised by the music on loudspeakers, but it wasn’t unduly obtrusive. Eel seemed to be the signature food (probably not altogether surprising if you live in an estuary) as well as some kind of pastry with amorphous goo on the inside. We had sushi & tofu with beer in a three table bar for dinner on Tuesday PM, then coffee and toast next to the railway station for breakfast (cheaper than the hotel). Narita has two stations, one for the Japan Railways line, the other for the Keisei (a private company) line. Just around the station is a faintly insalubrious nightlife, presumably for homecoming salary men, although on the wet Tuesday night we didn’t actually see anyone. A few of the bars had “No foreigners allowed” signs - In a way that’s probably a reasonable sign that it’s not an out-and-out tourist trap.