With a population of over half a million people, Funabashi is the 19^th largest city in Japan.  The commercial part of the city is centered around the train stations but out in the rural areas you can still find a lot of farming areas (farming was the major industry during the Edo Period).  Funabashi is about half an hour by train from Tokyo, close to the main ports, and relatively close to the international airport in Narita so it is, as the city web page says, "ideally located".  

In 1590, various parts of this area came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu (one of the more famous Shogun dudes).  Ieyasu worked to build a road network throughout Funabashi which helped the city develop rapidly.  

Just after Funabashi established itself as an official city, the Pacific War broke out and many of the country's military plants were set up here.  After the Tokyo bombings, Funabashi's population exploded as it became an evacuation destination for people fleeing Tokyo.  Tokyo was pretty much levelled by the bombings but Funabashi itself suffered very little damage.

Today there are over ten different trains providing excellent transportation throughout the city.  This excellent transportation network is part of the reason the city's population has quadrupled over the past 25 years.  I must say that it will be quite a change for us when we move to Yachiyo - a town of just over 5000 people and without a single train station!

Click here to check out the

Funabashi English Homepage

(I translated the mayor's speech!)

There's a really cool Shinto (the Japanese religion) shrine in Funabashi that has a rich historical background.  Apparently a lot of samurai guys fought it out there (couldn't find any real facts though).  

Funabashi City seems really proud of its man made wild life preserve marshland.  The marshland looks pretty funny actually - basically its a big swamp type area in the middle of a city.  Its surrounded by a highway, trains, and buildings but I guess the city's intentions were good when they built it.  I do get a kick out of all of the naturalist groups that head out here to get pictures of the birds early in the morning on the weekend though.  I guess I have been spoiled having grown up in Canada surrounded by

nature.  But I must say that the city pollution in the background does make for some great sunsets over the marshland.

Funabashi is also home to Japan’s largest shopping center – Lalaport.  With over 1.85 million square feet, Lalaport really is huge.  Partly designed by a Dallas company, the mall offers Japanese consumers a very western shopping experience.  The mall has just under 400 retailers, fifty restaurants and coffee shops, and a ten theatre cinema.  All of the big international stores are at Lalaport (GAP, Disney, Beneton, Timberland, Starbucks, etc.) so pretty much anything can be found there – even Colgate!  But no Tim Horton's coffee so anyone coming over can bring us a can of that instead of Colgate.

With reported visitor numbers of over 20 million people annually you can imagine how crowded this place can get and heading there on the weekend is a recipe for a headache.  But if you are looking for something from home (like pickles), the odds are good that you can find it at Lalaport (if its in Japan at all that is).

Another interesting thing about the place is the ski lockers.  Why ski lockers you ask?  Well, about a five minute walk from Lalaport

is SSAWS, another Funabashi attraction.  SSAWS is the indoor ski hill and I will do a story on it next month.

On the other side of the road is the Funabashi Horse Track and beside the ski hill is the motorcycle racing track.  All of these attractions this close together makes for a real traffic mess when they all have something going on.  My school is located right behind all these places but I can whip through all the traffic on my bicycle.