Robot Claw

Busy evening right now: packing and writing the last of the post cards whilst pushing through the exhaustion!

We spent the day in Akihabara. We shopped till we quite literally nearly dropped, and as you can see a decent percentage of Tokyo joined us 🙂

We won’t speak of the failed UFO Catcher attempts. As Bernard says, we may as well have thrown our money into the street!

And yet we persevered, and ultimately both won an item or two 🙂

First and second lunch only gave us enough to keep moving, and even now after second dinner I’m still feeling the draining effect of 8 hours in Akiba and another 2 in Ueno. I’ll sleep well tonight!

Tomorrow we fly home. Maybe I’ll do one more post before we leave this fine city!

Today was Operation Two Towers, where we visited not one but two observation towers in the same day!

We started with the old one:

Built way back in ’58, this now-iconic structure is the second tallest in Japan. It wasn’t busy and half the viewing platform was closed (for 2+ years so far!) but nonetheless we enjoyed the view from the main deck which is ~150 m from the ground. We sent postcards from a postbox that has a custom postmark, but later found out we hadn’t put enough postage on so who can say if they will arrive :<

We then crossed the city – pausing briefly in Asakusa for a little tourist gawking in light rain – and then head to the now famous – and much newer – Skytree:

This is by far the highest structure in japan and the second highest on earth. It towers over the surrounding area and as we approached from the street we were dazzled by the height.

We ascended to the principle observatory at 350 m, then further still to the higher (and more expensive) one at a staggering 450 m. We were very literally above the clouds, as we were looking at the rain on parts of Tokyo from above.

And then… this happened:

It didn’t take long for word to spread and very quickly the entire gallery was on the same side snapping photos of the rainbow 🙂

Skytree is great. It’s almost certainly the premiere observation tower in the world and the views are extraordinary. If you visit Tokyo, be sure to go up and see for yourself!

Tomorrow it’s time to descend into mania once again and visit Akihabara…

Yesterday was a travel day, and after long trips we both arrived safe and sound. Our hotel is well located and cozy with a great view of the station.

Today we went to Ikebukuro. We had plans to go to the planetarium but… plans change!

Shortly after we arrived we were ‘interviewed’ by four college students. It was the usual questions about foreigners in japan, slightly unusual because they were not high school kids and because they filmed it! They were impressed I was a Monster Hunter fan and astonished by my Puzzles and Dragons rank 🙂

We spent ages in game centers, and both won some interesting items. We also bought a load of stuff including countless amazing postcards. Now we need to get stamps!

Lunch was at the insane Macca’s in Sunshine 60. Today was a holiday (‘Coming of Age day’, and the reason post offices were closed) and I think half the global population was at Ikebukuro today! For the second time in my life I was actually sat by staff at Maccas!

We ended the day by going to Tokyo Dome after dark to see the lights. We also went on some rides and through the haunted house which was a lot of fun.

It was a very long and very full day, and just the start of what I expect will be a week of such days!