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Published: October 31st 2015
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Tokyo Skytree On 6 October, having decided to go to Skytree, one of the new attractions in Tokyo, we took the sobu line from Shinjuku station. It was already quite warm in the mid morning. I took my jacket off. Upon arriving at Kinshicho station, we found the sign for the Skytree, and could see it from the distance. We headed for the direction by walking straight on the street from Kinshicho station.’s square. After walking for 15 minutes, Oshiage station appeared on the right, and a lofty tower came into our sight: the tower with height of 634m looked awesome and spectacular as we approached.
We entered the building from Soramachi (sky town) Hiroba (square), and went up by the escalator. On the 4
th floor, we found the help desk counter for foreigners. Despite the fact that I am Japanese, the lady talked to me in English and persuaded us to buy the fast Skytree ticket by saying that we wouldn’t have to join a long queue with that ticket. I’ve asked her the price of the fast Skytree ticket and the day ticket; she said fast track ticket is ¥2,820 and the latter one is ¥2,060. I
said to her that I would talk to my husband and decide what to do. We had been informed that the waiting time was approximately 30 minutes and we were going to meet our friends at 4pm on 6 October: we decided to join a queue and buy ordinary day tickets. The queue was long; we waited for 45 minutes or so, but we enjoyed looking at digital picture scrolls depicting culture and scenery from Edo–Tokyo Shitamachi (downtown) neighbourhood on both sides of Sumida River.
We got in a lift, TEMBO shuttle, to go to TEMBO deck. The lift showed the image of Sumida River’s fireworks. There were quite a few tourists standing by the glass windows and taking photos. Slowly strolling through the circled floor, we overlooked residential houses, school buildings, stations, landmark buildings – Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, office buildings in Tokyo, Shimbashi, Shinagawa, Shibuya, and Shinjuku districts, Tokyo Dome, Ryogoku Kokugikan (sumo wrestling place), parks – Ueno Park, Shinjuku Gyoen, and the Imperial Palace Garden. It was a little hazy to see mountains, e.g. Fuji Mountain beyond. Some schools put square boards of their school name on their roof buildings to stand out among
a number of skyscrapers. We could see Tokyo bay and its surrounding developing areas. Having looked out of my hometown, I felt Tokyo was one of the biggest cities in the world. We also found the folding screen sketching the downtown’s life of Edo period, which was drawn 200 years ago. It looked like a big fishing village. We could recognise the geographical landscapes of the Sumida River, Tokyo Bay, but there weren’t any high buildings in that picture – miraculous and revolutionary developments have been happening in the downtown of Tokyo over the last 200 years.
Afterwards, we went down by escalators, popped in the Skytree shop and reached the lift go to go downstairs. We found a big souvenir shop on the 5
th floor, exit floor, and a wide variety of food stalls and shops on the 2
nd and 3
rd floor. It was lunch time; I let Mark decide which types of cuisine – Sanuki noodle, perking ramen noodle, Indian curry house, Korean food containing beef, pork, and vegetables with spicy kimuchi, tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets), Malaysian and Vietnamese food, to name just a few. He couldn’t decide; I chose to have Shanghai style noodles.
It
was just after 1:30 when we finished lunch. When we left the building, we looked at and took photos of the magnificent 634m tower from various angles: as of 2015, Tokyo Skytree is the second tallest tower in the world. The building work was started in the mid 2000s, and it was in the middle of construction in 2011 – Great Eastern Earthquake hit. My friends, family and relatives experienced massive and long period of quakes on the 11
th March 2011, and I saw quite a few of Tokyo and Yokohama’s skyscrapers swaying on the TV. Having been inspired from the traditional Japanese five-storey pagoda, which has endured many earthquakes, the architects used the reinforced concrete pillar in the centre of the Skytree. It is said that the steel tower structures that surround the pillar move separately to absorb up to 50%!o(MISSING)f seismic vibrations. Tokyo Skytree, built with forefront technologies combining with the traditional techniques, withstood the big earthquake on the 11
th March 2011 and has become a Tokyo’s major attraction.
Strolling through the Shitamachi district and Asakusa We decided to go to Asakusa. It isn’t far between Skytree and Asakusa, but I got lost
while walking around the residential areas and asked a couple of people the directions. We managed to reach Agatsumabashi Bridge and Asakusa. From the Asakusa’s side, we could see very distinctive high buildings – two of Asahi Brewery office buildings: golden surfaced building topping with white decorations featuring a beer glass and a black-laminated building with gold sculpture, Skytree, other tall office towers and a block of high rise flats.
I remembered visiting Asakusa with Mark in 1996. We strolled through the avenue from Asakusa Raimon gate to Sensoji Temple. As expected, stalls were selling a huge variety of souvenirs – rice crackers, sweets, accessories, ornaments and clothes. There were lots of tourists, quite a few of whom were Chinese. I found there were rickshaws stationed around Asakusa station. I guessed non-Japanese tourists or tourists from outside of Tokyo would ride the rickshaws. I saw the fare of one district, that is, ¥3,000. I wasn’t sure what the one district meant.
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