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Chiba sits just east of Tokyo across the bay, close enough to be on the same commuter rail network and share the same airport -- Narita is technically in Chiba Prefecture -- yet far enough to feel entirely its own city. What Chiba lacks in landmark density it makes up in sheer ordinarily Japanese life: izakayas tucked into side streets near Chiba Station, the Lotte Marines baseball team at Zozo Marine Stadium, cherry blossoms along Inohana Park with a view nobody photographs for Instagram.

The city's Makuhari Messe convention center, opened in 1989, made Chiba an unlikely venue for some of the world's largest trade shows and gaming conventions.

Makuhari New City grew up around it in a planned expansion that felt optimistic and futuristic in the bubble economy years and now sits comfortably lived-in. Chiba Castle is a 1960s concrete reconstruction of an Edo-period original, housing the city museum -- not a masterwork of historical preservation but an honest attempt at civic memory.