Day 5 part 2: Tokyo Skytree

One of the first things that you notice in Japan these days is the gigantic tower that looms over the entire city. It turns out that this is the tallest tower in the world. It is called the Tokyo Skytree, it stands 2080 feet tall (634 meters). Today we decided to go to the top of it.

Well, not to the top, that's a radio dish or something. But we went up to the observation deck around the 350 meter mark. Two things stood in our way of this goal, getting to the tower and getting through the ridiculous crowds to actually make it up.

Getting there:
We checked out some maps to figure out where the tower actually is and figured out that it wasn't too far from our apartment. Two train stops down and we'd be there. We, being the awesome adventurers that we are, decided that it'd be better to walk there. It's a gigantic tower and unless you are surrounded by buildings you can usually see it so we figured just keep walking toward it. This wasn't terrible but we probably could have handled it better. We ended up having to zig zag between buildings and streets and would randomly come upon a huge building in our way that we would have to walk around.

We've gotten used to these

OK, so we just walk that way

This bench was just here with no explanation

Eventually we saw a fellow foreigner sporting a back pack and figured they know more than us so we followed them a bit and ended up at the Tokyo Skytree Station. We followed some more signs and ended up where we wanted to be. Tip #1: Always follow other people, they usually know more than you.

The Tower:
Whenever I think of popular places around here I always imagine that they are tourist traps meant to separate foreigners from their yen. This place was not what I imagined. I had noticed that a lot of Japanese people around Asakusa would stop and take pictures of the tower but I never really thought much of it until we got here. This place was jammed full of people. I mean it was like Disney World on a Saturday in the Summer. What was most interesting though was that it was mostly native Japanese people. Apparently this place just opened this year and is still attracting a ton of people every day from all over the country.

We meandered about the place trying to find out how to actually go to the observation deck of the tower. We followed signs and went up various escalators and eventually found a few assistants who spoke enough English to point us in the right direction. They have an interesting system of tickets and lines for this place that seems to be made to stagger the groups going up.

We stood in a short line and were handed a ticket that said basically "be at Gate B between 2pm and 2:30pm". We got this at noon. OK, no big deal there are tons of shops and stuff around. We visit the mall at the base of the tower and find some fun places but it's not really our style so we end up just hanging out reading and checking the election results on our phones.

This one's for the ladies. And of course as we were taking this a group of old Japanese ladies came in. They just watched and laughed.

Can't beat the view

Two o' clock rolled around so we headed over to Gate B. We then stood in line to show them our pass that proved we were in this group. After that we got to stand in another line that stretched throughout the building. It ended up taking us about 45 minutes to get through this new line. The purpose of this line? To buy tickets to actually go to the top. So we got our tickets and stood in another line to go through a quick security check and then get in line to get on the elevator to get to the top.

That was a lot of line waiting but eventually it was worth it. The elevator was really cool, it displayed how fast you were going and the height. It accelerated really quickly to 600 meters a minute. Everyone's ears were popping due to the change in pressure. Very quickly we were at the top. The place was full of people but you could usually squeeze your way into a wall spot to take some pictures of the amazing view of the city. Whenever I think of a large city I always imagine a large downtown area with a few skyscrapers and a small outer ring of buildings. Tokyo is completely different. The city is just one enormous sprawl of civilization. It stretched out as far as we could see and all of the buildings looked unique and different.

So the view was amazing. We were marveling at just how awesome it was to be able to see everything at once and how high up we were. It can be sort of scary but you know you are protected by very thick glass. As we were basking in the wonder of it all we suddenly had a moment of clarity when they two men appeared. They shall now and forever be referred to "The Bravest Men in the World"...

We got our pictures and hung out for a bit but the altitude was making Chrissy feel a little queazy so we started for the exit. The whole area is three floors so and the departure elevator is at the bottom. We went down and hopped on the elevator and enjoyed the quick ride down. Once we exited we had to walk through the mall area to try to find the local train station. We were starving this whole time so everything seemed to take longer than it really did. We finally found the station and made it to the A line but then noticed a line forming near the elevator. We eventually figured out that the escalators were broken, while I feel that broken escalators are simply stairs the station seemed to disagree so we got to line up one final time.

Both of us were craving some hot food after a few meals of sushi and other colder items. Chrissy had heard my tale of the wonderful cafe so we decided to hit it again. I got the "hamburger" and she got the "pizza". I put those in quotes because they ended up being a unique spin on those items. My hamburger was basically a fried burger on a wheat bun with lettuce and tartar sauce. That last item was the strangest par tbut also turned out pretty good so it was cool to try it. Chrissy's pizza was of the thin crust variety with large tomatoes and corn on top. She wasn't a huge fan but it hit the spot well enough. We both had an Asahi Super Dry and Extra Cold which is becoming one of my favorite items.

We finished out the day by getting some supplies at the convenience store and heading back to the apartment. It was pretty early but we were both completely wiped out from the long day of activities. We might try taking a break in the middle of the day to see if we can get some night life activity going in the next few days. Only five days left in Tokyo before hitting the train to Kyoto.