Tokyo Tower, Zojoji Temple – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

This morning’s post from Tokyo might be somewhat abbreviated, primarily because I don’t have a lot to say. I went up the Tokyo Tower and visited a small nearby temple, Zojoji Temple, and that was it. Then again, not having much to say doesn’t always stop me from expounding on it excessively. We’ll see how it goes.

There are at least three reasons for the brevity of my morning. I’ll leave it to you as to whether they are good reasons.

The first reason is that I had a troubled sleep last night. For some unknown reason, I woke up a few times and took an inordinate amount of time to get back to sleep. Being an old man who has to pee occasionally at night, I’m glad I’m still able to wake up for that. But I can usually fall back to sleep quickly. Not last night.

“Why,” you ask, “would not sleeping well shorten your morning? Wouldn’t that cause you to give up sleeping, get up, and get going early?”

Jeez, people. You can be so impatient sometimes. If you had held your questions instead of interrupting me with them, I was just about to answer that without the need for you to ask. All you’ve done is waste both of our time while I paused for your questions.

Here’s the thing. The blackout blind in my hotel room is very effective. In the middle of a bright, sunny day, it would still be pitch black in the room if the roll-down blind were firmly closed.

When I woke up for the last of several times this morning, I opened my eyes and saw, well, nothing. It was, as I said, pitch black.

I thought to myself, because I had no one else to think to, “Damn! It’s still the middle of the night. Will this night never end?!”

I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes after 9:00 in the morning. I know this isn’t true for everyone, but that’s at least an hour past the time that I consider to be seriously sleeping in.

Then, I had to stir, get out of bed, stir some more, go to the bathroom, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, go before I left, and then head out.

The second reason that I didn’t have a lot of time is that I intentionally didn’t, for the most part, use either of my mapping apps to find my way to the Tokyo Tower. I knew the general direction of the tower, and I enjoy wandering around cities. Plus, there were points where the tower wasn’t eclipsed by the nearby buildings and I had a line of sight to it.

I only used a mapping app when I was getting close, but my view of the tower was obscured. Then, I made one course correction and headed the rest of the way there.

The point is, the walk no doubt took longer than it would have if I had let an app plot a more direct route for me. I don’t regret the ramble, but it meant I had less time for other things.

Tokyo Tower

The third reason for not having as much time to see and do things this morning occurred at the Tokyo Tower. You see, …

“But, wait,” you interrupt, “you walked over to the Tokyo Tower that first evening you arrived in Tokyo, and you went up to the observation decks of the much taller Tokyo Skytree the other day. What would possess you to go to the Tokyo Tower today?”

Okay. Fair question. And it’s not one I thought to answer unprompted. But since you asked and you weren’t overly rude about it, I’ll answer.

The evening I arrived in Tokyo, I saw the tower only at night when it was brightly lit up. I wanted to see it raw, unadorned in the light of day.

Plus, the Tokyo Tower is across town from the Skytree. Thus, their observation decks provide different perspectives on Tokyo.

Okay, fine. You’re right. Those sound more like rationalizations than reasons. But they’re my rationalizations, dammit. And I’m sticking with them.

Getting back to how the process at the Tokyo Tower limited the time I had to do other things, there are two observation decks at the Tokyo Tower. Like at the Skytree, you can buy a ticket just for the lower deck. Or you can buy a combo ticket that includes both decks.

You can go to the lower deck almost as soon as you buy your ticket. I don’t know if it is always true, but there wasn’t a long line to board one of the three parallel, decent-sized elevators to it.

However, you have to buy a timed ticket for the elevator to the upper deck. You have to board that elevator within the 15-minute interval on your ticket. The first available time slot was about 45 minutes after I arrived at the Tokyo Tower.

I bought that ticket, stepped outside for a bit, went back in, took the elevator to the lower deck, and spent some time there until it was time to board the elevator to the top.

But that wasn’t the end of the delay. Arriving at the elevator to the top at the beginning of my timeslot, there was already a bit of a lineup of people in my timeslot.

The reason for the ticket restrictions on the upper deck became apparent at that point. There are two small elevators from the lower to the upper deck.

When I say two elevators, I don’t mean there are two parallel elevators, of which you ride one. I mean that, first, you board an elevator. It takes you to an intermediate level. Then you board a second equally sized elevator to the top.

And when I say small, I do mean small. They crammed about 10 sardines, I mean people, into the elevator. Then, the operator, who pushed the button and gave a brief spiel in Japanese and English, came on board. She was, fortunately, very thin. I was the last customer to board the elevator, so I was next to the operator. How close were we in that compact space? I’m not sure, but I think we’re now engaged. (The English version of her spiel was so heavily accented that I wasn’t sure what she said, so I might be mistaken about us being engaged.)

At the intermediate level, an attendant poses each group of visitors—I was a group of one—in front of a window and snaps a picture. And, they hand you a small cup of your choice of type of iced tea for you to drink while waiting for the second elevator.

(There are two versions of the pictures available at a desk when you leave the tower. One version is the picture embedded in a postcard-sized card that mostly contains advertising for the tower. That version is free. You can also buy a larger version of just the picture, for a fee that I didn’t enquire about because I wasn’t interested. I took the small version, but threw it out for two reasons. One, I hate pictures of myself. And, two, they didn’t hand out the magnifying glass that would have been necessary to see myself in the tiny picture embedded in the card. Come to think of it, considering how I feel about pictures of myself, maybe that was a plus.)

The lower observation deck has two levels, with a snack bar on one of them. The lower level also has some small glass floors. I conquered my fear of glass floors in the Tokyo Skytree, but I couldn’t do it at the Tokyo Tower. I don’t know why.

It was closer to the ground than the Skytree, but I still couldn’t do it. I got close. I edged one shoe, maybe a millimetre onto the glass, but, try though I did, I couldn’t convince my feet to go any farther. Maybe it’s because, being closer to the ground, what’s below is much clearer and, therefore, feels more real. Or maybe it’s because the glass at the Tokyo Tower was almost crystal clear, whereas the glass at the Skytree was considerably scuffed, obscuring the reality of the death that awaited me below. I don’t know.

As to the views, I was right about the Tokyo Tower providing a different perspective than the Skytree. It is still a huge megalopolis from both sites, but everything is in a slightly different place to your eye.

Plus, the lower deck of the Tokyo Tower is at 150 metres. The upper deck is at 250 metres. At the Skytree, in contrast, the respective numbers are 350 and 450 metres. So the upper deck at the Tower is 100 metres lower than the lower deck of the Skytree.

One thing I hadn’t considered before going is that from the Tokyo Tower, the other buildings of Tokyo have much greater definition than those viewed from the Skytree. You can clearly see and appreciate individual buildings. At the Skytree, the height tends to blend them somewhat. Or at least it does for my tired old eyes.

Oh, by the way. You have to walk down a flight of stairs to get from the upper level to the lower level of the lower deck of the Tokyo Tower. An animation played on the wall above the staircase. I captured a video of only one segment of the animation, and the other segments weren’t all like that, but …

… tell me. Would you feel as disconcerted as I did to walk down a set of stairs with an animation of people tumbling down playing over the stairs? What the heck was that about?

Zojoji Temple

The Zojoji Temple is a short walk from the Tokyo Tower, so it seemed like a good stop to take in before moving on for the day.

The Zohoji Temple sits atop a wide concrete staircase. The temple is gorgeous, with a double-tiered, pagoda-style roof, and the Tokyo Tower poking above it. Alright, the Tokyo Tower doesn’t exactly add to the beauty, but it was there. Walking around to the back of the temple gave me a good view of the Tower.

I wasn’t allowed to go into the temple itself. But the wide front door was open. The only thing between me and the interior of the temple was a low bureau containing smoking incense containers. The bureau was almost as wide as the doorway. I don’t think that door is where people are supposed to enter.

There were signs by the door saying not to take photographs during services.

There was a service going on when I arrived. Monks rhythmically chanted in deep voices and occasionally hit a small drum and rang a chime. It was almost mesmerizing.

The service ended before I left. Consequently, I was able to snap a picture of the understated but lovely interior.

And, before you interrupt me with more questions that would draw this post out further, this is a good place for me to it. I’ll have more to say in the afternoon. You can pester me again then. Or not. It’s up to you.