Sky Tree

First day in Tokyo and we had a plan - the new thing to see and do is the Sky Tree. It is a communication/observation tower that opened earlier this year. It stands 634 meters high, which makes it the tallest such structure in the world. Not being ones to leave well enough alone, the builders have built a huge complex around the tower full of things to see and do.

I'll interject here to say that the software I'm using to blog on the iPad isn't letting me add pictures to this post where I want them, so you'll find them all at the end of this post.

Everything we could find on the Internet said that the lines for tickets were huge and that there was no way to get advance tickets, so we were resigned to a long wait. And yet - no problem today. We walked off the subway just before 9:00am and walked right in.

The Japanese are super organized about such things, and one way they manage is with lots of staff. This young lady, in her official Sky Tree uniform (you can't see her shoes, but they match) is directing us into the line for the elevator.

In less than a minute. The elevator took us to the 350m level - the elevator car was absolutely still and silent. Only the popping of or ears told us we were moving. Being a clear day we could see for miles in all directions. Travelling by subway leads to a distorted idea of the shape and size of a city - we were astonished to see how many rivers and canals weave through the city. The subways run under it all and we just pop up here, look around, pop up somewhere else.

We had our picture taken on the glass bottom section - it's pretty dramatic, but after doing the Grand Canyon Skywalk not too terrifying. Here we are acting like Japanese tourists:

But what does it actually look like? Like this:


After the Sky Tree itself we visited the aquarium at the base - a very nice display. Lots of little kids about, and penguins and seals and many mysterious critters. We were able to see the seal feeding session - those seals have their handlers very well trained!

Day one a success- time these weary sightseers to rest up for another day on the town.