Tokyo Tower ...

Way back in December, Amanda and I went to Tokyo for work. We went to a conference the first day and I helped give a presentation at Tokyo University the next but in between lectures, meetings, and sessions we found some time to have a little fun. We decided to do the ultimate tourist thing and go to Tokyo Tower. The thought alone made my heart beat fast.

I've been up in my fair share of tall buildings and free-standing structures. The Space Needle, Sears Tower, the Stratosphere & that incredibly terrifying ride at the top, the Umeda Building in Osaka, the Eiffel Tower in Paris. You name it and I'm not opposed to doing it, but that doesn't mean that it's any easier. I still freak out, my voice goes up an octave, I get sweaty palms and I feel like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest. Tokyo Tower was no exception.

According to Wikipedia: "The 332.6-meter-tall (1,091 ft) orange and white lattice tower is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world, the tallest artificial structure in Japan and the 11th tallest tower in the world."

The closer we got, the more nervous I got. It just kept getting bigger & bigger & bigger.

Scary, eh?

I'm kind of on this black & white kick ... bear with me.

"The tower is constructed of steel, a third of which was from recycled World War II scrap steel. Despite being 8.6 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower (32.6 if the tower's TV antenna is included), Tokyo Tower only weighs about 4,000 tons, 3,300 tons less than the Eiffel Tower." (Guess who).

So we got inside & were in line to go up & I kind of started to freak. Surprise, surprise.
Emi was a little scared herself & showed it by looking kind of scary.
So as a distraction I turned on the video camera.



And then the elevator arrived & Amanda took over the recording while I had a small anxiety attack in the back of the elevator. :)

& Then we were at the top.

So we got out of the elevator & I calmed down. The view was actually stunning & you could really see the magnitude of the city. It was beautiful at night with all of the lights & these pictures really don't do it justice.

See? Smiling & everything.

I even stood on this see through piece of flooring that went straight down to the busy street below. Total time standing on it: .005 seconds.
There were lots of fun things to do up at the top & a lot of interesting interactive maps & Amanda & I were all about it. The pictures didn't turn out very well, but Amanda did great with the vid cam.

Tokyo Tower was good & I'm glad I did it. And of course I'll go back and do it again whenever anyone comes to visit, although I can pretty much guarantee I will have the same fear and anxiety the second time as I did the first time.

much love

-tara-

xx