Tokyo day 2: Skytree and entertainment districts

Thursday, April 17, 2014
Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
We started the sightseeing today by going up the recently finished tallest tower in the world: Tokyo Skytree. It's height is 634 meters, more than 80 meters taller that our own CN Tower. It features 2 observation decks: one at 350 meters and another at 450. We waited in line for about 45 minutes to get the tickets to the lower deck, then up there we purchased the tickets to the higher one. The top deck features and interesting spiralling corridor that takes visitors from 445 to 450 meters, while allowing them to see Tokyo's panorama through wide windows. It was kind of humid and foggy for the last couple of days, unfortunately, so far away buildings were obscured by all the moisture in the air. Still it was a very interesting view, and on clear day you can apparently see all the way to Mt. Fuji from there.

After visiting the ultra-modern Skytree tower, we headed to a much more historical district - Asakusa . On the way there we stopped at the headquarters of Asahi corporation that makes beer and many other drinks (the building is shaped like a giant foamy glass of beer) and had some German-style lunch, after which we dropped by a small charming bakery for some dessert. Then we headed to Asakusa, walked through Kaminarimon gate with a huge red lantern in the middle, and up Nakamise street to Sensoji temple. The temple and the shopping street were crowded for no apparent reason, so we took some photos and headed to the nearest subway station.

We took the local subway to Roppongi, a famous nightlife district. We visited a very upscale complex called Roppongi Hills. It has some residential buildings, very expensive shops and restaurants as well as offices. We saw a lot of foreigners around there, as Roppongi has a large expatriate community.

From there we took a bus to Shibuya station to see the famous crossing where hundreds of people walk across a wide road in all directions simultaneously. I looked up a good location to photograph the crossing from, but it took us some time of running around to locate it, the area around the station is a giant chaos of stores and rushing people. Finally, we found the elevated walkway that provides a nice view of the crossing and took some photos from up there. Then we walked to a giant shopping complex called Shibuya Hikarie that has a large selection of restaurants on several of its floors and we had some great grilled eel (unagi) there.
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