Our last complete day in Japan, feeling mildly worse for wear we decided that today we'd visit the Sky Tree observatory and pop into anything interesting on the way.
We wandered out of our hotel, heading North East towards the Sky Tree, which was so tall we didn't even need directions. But, first we stopped at the Former Yasuda Garden, almost next door to the hotel. A Zen garden, with koi fish, cute bridge and lots of greenery. In fact, we saw it from the top of the hotel.
Former Yasuda Garden seen from the hotel, with the Sky Tree in the background
We wandered around the place, which was free to enter and walked amongst the plants, the very few other visitors and some persons tending to the garden. There was also a photoshoot going on nearby.
Unfortunately I couldn't capture the front, that view was reserved for the photographer hired
Once we'd had enough of the garden, we popped into the building next door, Japanese Sword Museum. It's a bit of a strange one because most of the building seems to be offices with a hall upstairs and a corner in the entry area devoted to swords. Some photos were permitted but several of the displays prohibited photography.
The main display area on the second floor
Some more information on the ground floor
Saw this sign on the way out of nearby and incredibly niche museums that we chose not to visit, such as the Hairpin Museum, the Museum of Business Cards and Paper Products and my favourite, the Small Museum of Books about Glass. We just didn't have enough time...
The Sword Museum wasn't free, and there really wasn't much to see beyond the swords and the limited English information, but it was still kind of interesting. So we set off on our trek to the Sky Tree which actually sits on top of a mall, where we had our first Japanese experience of McDonalds. It was actually quite overcast and we were worried it was going to ruin our view...
If you go and look at the Sky Tree on Google Maps in satellite mode its quite amusing, because you can't see it for the 3D effect that makes it poke you out of the screen.
Apparently its the worlds tallest freestanding broadcasting tower at 450m tall. We managed to get up to 350m, because going any higher was disproportionately more expensive. The lift took a minute or so, travelling at the speed of sound, and the view was actually quite impressive, if a little grey on this day.
Honjo Senior High School
The Sensō-ji Temple area that we visited the other day. Look closely and you'll see the inner city theme park with roller coasters in the back right
Looking South, can you spot the Asahi Group Head Office Building, with its weird golden perm?
Zooming in, you can see the Sumo Arena with big green roof. Our hotel was just to the right next to the arched bridge
The mother of vertical panoramas with extra curvature of the Earth, a 56MP photo, worth zooming in on.
The East Core Hikifune condos
Pokemon Centre is in that skyscraper right next to the Sky Tree
Sakurabashi Junior High School on the far side next to the baseball pitch
The balls belong to the Senju Hydrogen Station
The view looking towards the North East, the dense city skyline as far as you can see in every direction
There was a section in the building with a glass floor and well, it was two square metre glass floor and it was very underwhelming, but you can see it one floor down and don't have to wait too long because people get bored of it quite quickly.
That was it, basically the last thing we did on our Japan trip, before flying back to our respective homes the very next day. What a bloody fantastic time and amazing place we visited.
The Sky Tree in its full glory
