Shot from the river below the tower
Just to give you some perspective! Now to reach this place I had to jump on the JR line to Ueno, but from there, annoyingly it is subway only, costs 300 yen each way. Grrr... I have a rail pass for free travel but not valid, oh well! Got to the tower and was staggered at just how popular the place was, in order to even get a ticket I had to visit a tent and get give a card that says 'reservation to buy ticket at 4pm...' I'd arrived at 1pm!
Right there and then I knew this was going to be a ballache in terms of waiting, so I descended to the river where I took the above shot. Luckily for me there was an open top boat moored and they offered river tours at a cost of 1500 yen, being into boating and chilling I decided why the hell not? So off down the river a sailing I went.
View from the prow
This was a nice relaxing way to spend the day, a few Japanese families were on board and one of the children was curious enough to ask where I was from. When I said the UK he had no idea where it was! I answered it was in Europe and his grandmother explained it was a long way from Japan haha. This was a really awesome trip even if it just involved two sections of the river, just cruising taking photos, sipping chilled green tea and enjoying the sunshine, it was bliss. Still had to come to an end after around half an hour but considering the costs to go on the Ouse or the Thames this was a decent price.
Kikkake wa... Me!
Back at the tower I found a world beer tent on the deck before the skytree entrance so had one which was an American IPA called 'Pike' and damn was it good! Reminded me alot of Rogue Red and that is very high praise indeed! Not seen it anywhere but I think I'll be talking to my friends at Beermoth in Manchester to see if they can source it anytime soon!
Well eventually the time to go into the area to buy tickets appeared and oh my fucking god... If this was not the biggest queue I have seen for any public tourist attraction since Nemesis opened for the first time at Alton Towers in the 1990's! I had already been waiting for at least three hours and my patience was wearing quite a bit thin by this point.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please have passports and boarding cards ready for inspection!
Yes I can't say I was impressed. Fortunately it was actually quite swift moving to get through to the ticket point but it did get me worried about whether it would be possible to actually see much. After all, if you go back to the photo I took of the tower, the deck looks pretty rounded, could it honestly hope to cope with the crowd here? Well only way to find out was give it a shot. So I paid 2000 yen in order to get up the tower, easily the most expensive of all the towers I have visited so far, but still cheaper than The Shard in London! Which is funny considering Tokyo Skytree observation deck is higher than the shard in its entirety!
Well the next leg of the ascent involved going through airport security scanners and having bags checked, by now I was really thinking that the country was trying to tell me something! Still eventually we all huddled in a gloomy space where there were huge elevator doors and odd sparkling lights as if to be some gala/jazz club entrance. We step on board, ride 300+ metres up the spire and then the doors open into bright sunlight, cue a mass Sugoi! from everyone on board.
I have to say, it was a long wait, but worth it, let me show you what I mean!
I spent ages taking in the view and just looking out at the vastness of this one city. It was impressive, like in Kyoto, to see where the old and the new collided so unusually. Plus it was eerie to see the mist on the horizon, reminded in a way of Silent Hill. Now there is a higher deck that costs a further 1000 yen to access but with the mist afore-mentioned I didn't feel I'd get much extra out of it so decided against it this time.
I did think that it would be good to stand a tall one as they would have said in the states so tried to find anywhere that sold beer. There were two sky cafes but none had alcohol! This annoyed me so I settled for an iced latte, not quite the same experience really but it was as close as I could get this time! Speaking of odd, they didn't sell beer but did have a menu of this.
Can you honestly think of anything more ghastly than that!? Seriously who in the name of fuck thought it was a good idea to mix milk, blueberry and fucking vinegar!? Might as well serve vanilla ice cream and top it with ketchup! Fucking disgusting shit, and no, I am NEVER trying it out for you!!!
After an hour or so of taking it all in and burning the memory card of my camera I decided it was time to move on, with the time I spent waiting I could have sat there all day but I didn't want to spoil it for anyone else. It was literally a case of get up close to the glass, take your shots and move on so someone else could move in and have a go.
I did however get the following before I went.
340 metres straight down! That's what it looks like, wish you were here? I actually wish I could have scaled those rungs you can see beneath the grid floor! Hey you know me, live life over the edge and flip death off on the way down!
In all I would say it is worth going but really, if possible get a Japanese friend with a credit card to order tickets online! The hassle of getting there on the day, waiting for a slot just to join the ticket queue and then get up the tower is just a massive pain in the balls! Still it was a worthy experience. Now today is the cool hello concerts at Nakano Sun Plaza, so I am literally gonna finish up here, grab some breakfast and get ready to head out to said gigs! Going to be an absolute blast! Until next time *sets sail*
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