I have a weakness for viewing platforms of most kinds — as long as they don’t involve church tower staircases or anything that could be described as a rickety ladder. The Tokyo Sky Tree was therefore never really optional. A 450-metre vantage point over the entire city, with a fighting chance of spotting Mount Fuji on a clear day — that’s not something you talk yourself out of. Unlike several other attractions that had required planning weeks in advance, getting a ticket for a Monday turned out to be relatively straightforward. The combined ticket for the 350-metre main deck and the upper gallery came to 3100 yen — not cheap, but then the Sky Tree is the third tallest structure in the world, and some things are worth paying for.
I briefly considered walking from Ueno, since it wasn’t that far on the map. Then I checked the time, noted that the booking confirmation was quite emphatic about punctuality, and took the subway instead. Smooth as ever — by this point I had the station navigation down to something approaching autopilot.
Up the Sky Tree
I had booked the 10 a.m. slot, right at opening. The queue was already substantial when I arrived, but true to form, the Japanese organisational machinery handled it with quiet precision — orderly groups, a security check thorough enough to rival a mid-sized airport, and about fifteen minutes of waiting before we were funnelled into the elevator. The lift itself was fast, though not the fastest I’ve encountered. My ears disagreed either way.
You emerge at the Tembo Deck at 350 metres, and the view is immediately, unambiguously sensational. The crowds were well distributed around the circular walkway, making it easy to find a good spot and take your time. The tinted glass is a slight obstacle for photography — more than I’d expected — but with a digital camera you have essentially unlimited attempts, so patience solves the problem. You gradually work your way around and then down through several floors, at which point you can either take a separate elevator back up to the deck or continue descending.
All the way up
I quickly joined the queue for the Tembo Gallery at 450 metres, and it was absolutely worth the extra effort. Far fewer visitors, and noticeably better views — partly because the windows extend much lower, giving a proper sense of the drop beneath you. From up here I could pick out virtually everywhere I had already been: Asakusa, the museum cluster in Ueno, Minato, Odaiba, the Shinjuku Gyoen. And then the highlight — a remarkably clear line of sight all the way to Fuji. It would turn out to be the best opportunity of the entire trip to photograph the mountain, which felt like a small gift from the weather gods.
There was plenty of other detail to absorb too. The Asahi brewery headquarters directly below, for instance, with its famous golden sculpture on the roof — officially the Flamme d’Or, meant to represent a golden flame, though Tokyoites have for decades affectionately referred to it as the “golden turd.” Both interpretations are visible from 450 metres. Then there was the Sakura Bridge arcing over the Sumida, and beyond everything, the endless grid of rooftops stretching unbroken to the horizon in every direction. Impressive and faintly unsettling in equal measure — the first time I truly felt the scale of what a megacity actually means.
Chillaxing
Time was technically running out — officially you have one hour on the deck, though I couldn’t quite work out how or whether this was actually enforced. Either way, I still had plans for the afternoon, so I made my way back down to the Tembo Deck with mild reluctance, twenty minutes still in hand.
I wandered around for a bit, then remembered that there was a glass floor section. Now, I am genuinely afraid of heights — oddly, not inside solid structures like this one, but still — and I approached it with appropriate caution. It turned out to be exactly as unsettling as advertised: straight down, NOTHING between you and the ground but 350 metres of air and the tower’s own support structure. No visual buffer whatsoever. Not recommended for the faint-hearted, but I held my nerve, held my breath, and even allowed myself to be talked into a photo booth picture as evidence. Bravery, documented.
Then came the moment of genuine inspiration: I had no desire to go back down, and I had noticed that the cocktail bar on the same floor operated under no time limit whatsoever. A loophole, essentially. Ten minutes in the queue, and I was in — settled by the window with a “Layer Cake” and the Sky Tree signature cocktail, the latter arriving in a shade of Blue Curaçao that can only be described as aggressively turquoise. I ate slowly, drank slowly, and watched the city from those same lofty heights with absolutely nowhere else to be. Cocktail, cake, panoramic view. Sometimes travel planning works out rather well.