HALAL MEDIA JAPAN has started its coordination with Chiba city.
We are going to provide information to our Muslim friends for their comfortable stay, through the below summary of Chiba city’s contents that are corresponding to Muslims. Since Chiba city is located between Tokyo and Narita airport, it has a great transportation access.
Chiba city is full of delicious food and leisure activities. It would be such a waste to go directly to Tokyo from Narita airport!! For more details, click the following link: A Website Specially for Chiba
We received the below message from the sightseeing ambassador of Chiba city.
Hello everyone!
My name is Saori Kokame, and I am a part of PR unit of Chiba city tourism called “Chiba City 5 BEACH Angels”.
Chiba City is about 30 minutes away from both Narita airport and Tokyo.
It has a great transportation access.
Chiba city can be defined by its enticing feature of offering both “ocean” and “countryside”.
And its attractiveness is also defined by the fact that these two elements are being connected to internationally diversified city.
If you go to “Makuhari area” in Chiba city, you will be greeted with “Makuhari Messe” consisting of international exhibition hall, conference facilities, event hall, and list of hotels that can accommodate about 3000 people.
The hotel prices are relatively cheap when compared to Tokyo, and you can go to Tokyo Disney Resort with a free shuttle bus with about 15 minute ride.
The headquarter of “AEON” is also located in the city and since a huge shopping mall that was built a year ago is adjacent to Makuhari, visitors can stay overnight at “Makuhari” and thoroughly enjoy their time of shopping.
The city offers other various attractions.
You can go visit places such as Zoo, sightseeing cruises, world’s longest suspended type monorail and the list goes on and on. Among all these places you can go visit, I would like to take this time to share with you 2 information that are valuable to Muslim visitors.
The first information is to reiterate that Chiba city is the most prominent “Muslim Friendly” city in Japan.
The “Hotel Springs Makuhari” located in “Makuhari” of Chiba city is considered to be at the forefront of “Muslim friendly” hotel with providing of services such as halal corresponding food menu and worship space. The hotel is also famous for being a type of business operator who promoted this movement before anyone else.
When talking about halal, there are a lot of restaurants in the city that are “Muslim friendly” with offering of delicious halal corresponding food such as tempura, washoku with sashimi/etc., curry rice, Chinese buffet, etc.
You may wonder why Chiba city is so well equipped with halal corresponding services. The answer lies in the fact that Chiba city is a type of city that actively promotes halal for its commercial facilities, along with the city having a committee that is composed for the purpose of promoting halal.
In last year, the city offered homestay experience for Muslim students on the school trip and in doing so, the city provided a heartwarming “Omotenashi” through the effort of involving everyone in the city such as host families, city’s high schools, regional day care centers, etc.
The second recommended information is Chiba’s big and sweet strawberries.
Strawberry picking is the number one to-do-activity in Chiba city. Since Chiba is the most well-known strawberry producing region in Japan, I am going to introduce 3 strawberry picking farms that are especially considered unique and interesting.
The first farm I’m going to introduce is called “Yokota Farm”. Although strawberry picking season in Japan usually ends around beginning of May, this is the only farm in metropolitan area where you can go picking throughout the entire month of June. So this farm would be a great place to go during the school holidays and after Ramadan. The farm also offers strawberry pizza and deserts. Prayer mat and compass are being provided for free-of-charge.
Recently, “Dragon Farm” is experiencing an upsurge of Southeast Asia tourists visiting their farm. Such popularity is no surprise since this is the only farm where you can experience 14 different types of strawberries x2 types of syrup.
Last but not least is a farm called “Erdebeere”. This farm which means “strawberry” in German is definitely a must-go strawberry farm, since a famous Japanese Idol group called “Arashi” came out to this farm for the shooting of TV program and were astonished by the amazing scent of its strawberries. In recent days, it has become the farm with possessing of largest area size.
Aside from strawberry picking farms, the city offers various attractions such as zoo, monorail, sightseeing cruises, baseball games, etc.
As the final introduction, I am going to share with you my recommended plan for the time between Narita airport arrival to the hotel check-in.
Narita airport (arrive in the morning)
→Strawberry picking
→Experiencing the “omotenashi” of halal corresponding traditional Japanese lunch and crafts/etc. (calligraphy, tea ceremony, wearing of kimono) at “Suruga”
→Monorail (World’s number one suspended type monorail. It’s been told that fun collaboration with Anime is currently being considered)
→Sightseeing cruise(Chiba port area)
→Check-in at “Muslim friendly” hotel(Makuhari area)
AEON mall(Japanese anime shop located at 3rd floor of the grand mall is greatly recommended!)
Enjoy shopping at Mitsui factory outlet, etc. (1 minute walk from the station!).
For your plan after the second day, depending on how you are feeling, you can go to places like Tokyo or Disneyland.
Please consider making Muslim friendly city “Chiba” as the base for your fun visit to Japan!
I greatly look forward to your visit to this amazing city.
January 20, 2015
Chiba City 5 BEACH Angels
Saori Kokame
