Hey Hive/Steemit!
If you didn't catch the last couple of posts, this series is about our trip to Tokyo (again) way back in August 2016, when we went there for a short international exchange program called Promoting Asian Leadership (PAL) with Keio University! The program was a week long, but we went there a few days ahead of time to explore and revisit our favourite places.
So last week, we started our journey up the tallest tower in the world - Tokyo Skytree!
It was pretty crowded when we got to the 350th floor but we hung around for a bit and took a crap ton of photos while enjoying the view and the early sunset.
But there's actually a lot more to the Tembo Deck which we explored, so here we go!
9 August 2016. Monday.
So the Tembo Deck ticket that we bought entitles you to several things, including the 350th floor galleria (where we were last week), the 345th floor which has a restaurant and The Skytree Shop, and the 340th floor with the Skytree Cafe.
The 3 floors are connected via staircases so we just walked down from the 350th floor to the 345th floor to check it out.
And the first thing we saw was the merch shop.
They sold typical souvenir stuff in the shop that was ridiculously expensive, as expected. But we just went in to take a look.
I have no idea why we made this face but the Skytree mascot they have behind us reminds me of Animal Crossing.
I think the most expensive thing they had were these models of the
Tokyo Skytree made with Swarovski crystals which were around $2,000 SGD!
Crazy! I really wonder who would actually buy that.
There wasn't much space to walk around on the 345th floor as compared to the 350th, but there was still a nice view to enjoy.
The sun was slowly setting, which made it hard to take pictures, but the view was stunning.
I think it might've been too crowded because I didn't actually manage
to take photos of the restaurant but it looks something like this:
Source: Pinterest
It definitely looks more impressive at night. And is also really
expensive so we didn't dine there. So after taking a few more photos, we
went further downstairs to the 340th floor.
There is the Skytree Cafe at the 340th floor, which at the time was
really crowded! I guess everyone had the same idea as us and wanted to
enjoy the sunset while sitting and snacking.
Sorry for the blurriness. I'm not sure what happened with my camera.
But here are some better pics I found:
Source: tabelog
Source: tobu.co.jp
But the sun was finally setting so we decided to queue up for a bit so we could sit and enjoy it.
Thankfully we didn't have to wait long since it's easier to seat 2 people than a whole family.
We took whichever counter seats were available, since we wanted to be
face the view, but there are also tables further inside. I guess that's
better for families.
I didn't get a photo of the menu unfortunately, but I guess it was something like this:
Source: Asia Travel Guide
I remember they had different desserts and drinks available at the
time. Not that many options but apparently now their menu also features
some mains like curry rice and even a morning set that available from
8am-10am. I"m not sure who would ever come up here during that time but
oh well.
I wasn't really in the mood for sweet things but since we didn't have
much of a choice, and it's mandatory for each patron to buy something,
Sean decided to get 2 pieces of cake - 1 chocolate and 1 strawberry
cheesecake.
Since we were celebrating Sean's belated birthday and I guess
Singapore's birthday too (9 Aug is Singapore's independence day), 2
cakes seemed fitting.
It was 6:40pm by the time we got our cakes and the sun was truly setting by then.
So we just sat, relaxed and ate our cakes while watching the city lights come on.
Both the cakes were actually really sweet; way too sweet for me. So I just had a little bit of both and Sean ate most of it.
In just 15 minutes, most of the lights had turned on and with a hint of dusk still in the sky, man, what a sight to behold!
We sat there in the cafe taking lots of photos and eating our
desserts for about 20 minutes. We didn't want to stick around for too
long since there were people still waiting to sit, so we left.
The 340th floor also had this small glass floor area where you could
see all the way down to the bottom of the tower, but it was pretty dark
and since we were so high up you couldn't really see much.
It was getting hard to take photos since the lights inside the
Skytree would get reflected in the glass windows, but the night view is
so different from daytime. Both are pretty spectacular though.
We tried taking some selfies but the lighting wasn't very good so this was the best we could do:
After that, there wasn't much else for us to do up here so we bid the
view farewell and took the lift back down to the bottom, where we
arrived to this exhibition:
I'm not sure what this was, maybe it was potential designs for the Skytree? But it looked pretty cool.
After that we headed back towards the mall and saw this cream puff
shop! We wanted to get more snacks and it looked pretty good so we
decided to give it a try.
I think the crust was similar to the cookie crust we always get from
Beard Papa but this one was definitely creamier, since it was like a
hamburger instead of being injected and filled with cream.
It was yummy though! But I had way too much sugar already so I only had a bite or two.
Since we weren't that hungry from eating all those desserts, we got a small fried chicken bowl from KFC to try.
The chicken was definitely different from the Singapore KFC, but it
wasn't too bad. It did get a little dry since there wasn't any gravy or
sauce though.
After that, we headed to the arcade! Where we failed at Luigi's Mansion, again.
But I beat Sean in Mario Kart (he's just faking)!
And we ended the day with another Neko Atsume crane machine win!
Man, what a day! Celebrating Sean's birthday in the world's tallest
tower while enjoying the sunset and an awesome view of Tokyo was such a
unique experience; definitely one of the highlights of this trip
(despite the sorry excuse of a program imo). At least this day made it
all better because it was just us enjoying each other's company.
Sorry this post went on so long but there were so many photos I wanted to share! Hope you enjoyed it anyway!
Next week: we visit a place dedicated to a very important character from my childhood! Can you guess who it is?
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #72 (Japan 2.0): On Top of the World! 🏙
