One of the things that caught us by surprise upon our arrival in Tokyo was the new Tokyo Sky Tree. The Sky Tree will be the successor to the Tokyo Tower and will be the tallest free-standing tower in the world. It was about half of its final height of 634 meters while we were there, but according to its rather cool website it has reached 368 meters. We had a dramatic view of it from our hotel window, and the bellboy that showed us to our room pointed it out and described it to us with a obvious amount of pride.
Our friend Rafael, a resident of Tokyo, had never seen it. He exclaimed something along the lines of “WTF is that!?” when he came to our room. While this might reflect something about Rafael’s recent habits, I think it tells you more about how dense Tokyo is. The buildings are so tall and tightly packed that it’s very difficult to see anything beyond your immediate surroundings from street level.
By a stroke of lucky timing we also saw a sight-seeing zeppelin circle the tower a couple of times. I took a few pictures of it even though my camera’s lens really wasn’t up to the task. The set of photos, including several of the tower without the zeppelin, is here. The Sky Tree poses something of a challenge to photographers of the Tokyo cityscape since, even at half its intended height, it dwarfs the surrounding buildings.
