Golden Week v2: 600 Steps (And A Whole Lot More)

Today, I finally got to see an iconic landmark, Tokyo Tower. I even got to climb all 600 steps outside of the tower up to the view point. It didn’t stop there as we strolled through Roppongi Hills, and by the end of the day, my feet were killing me. 

We didn’t sleep in too late after our night out, though I certainly could have done with another hour or two in bed. Eventually, we set off to find breakfast. Henry had found a pancake place near Shinjuku station that was the perfect motivation to start my day. That place was too busy, but honestly, we might have found an even better place on the same floor. 

After possibly the best breakfast I’ve ever had in Japan (the bar is much lower than I’d like) I was full of energy. A good thing too, because today we were taking on Tokyo Tower. It was about a 15 minute walk from the station, but it was a little hilly. A good warmup for the rest of the day in retrospect. 

Tokyo Tower is a pretty historic and iconic landmark, from 1958 - 2012 it was the tallest tower in Tokyo, before being surpassed by Tokyo Skytree. It had long been on my list of places to see, so I was more than happy to finally get around to it. 

We took a few photos of the outside before heading in to get our tickets. The line wasn’t too long, but it gave us some time to weigh our options. There was the main deck for about $15, the smaller top deck was about $33 and a VIP tour for $70, but neither of us even entertained that idea. In the end we went for the main deck, since that’s where the outdoor staircase leads to anyways. 

After getting our tickets we looked around for signs directing us to the staircase, but couldn’t really find anything. I asked an attendant where the stairs were, and she directed us towards the main elevator. This ended up taking us to the main deck, which wasn’t quite what we were after, but I figured it would be fine.

We strolled around the main deck, snapping some photos, and enjoying the view. Once we felt satisfied we headed back down and went looking for the stairs. We finally found them, but once we got to the entrance, we were told our tickets were single use only, and we would have to buy new tickets to use the stairs. We headed back down to the lobby, but I was in a rather foul mood. 

As we passed by the customer service area, I mustered by courage, and tried to explain the situation. I figured their English was better than my Japanese, so I tried to explain as simply as possible that we had intended to take the stairs, but someone had directed us to the elevator after we asked them for directions. 

It took a bit of back and forth to explain the situation, and honestly I had expected a “sorry, you have to buy a new ticket” response. Luckily, they wrote on the back of our tickets that we were allowed re-entry. My mood changed on a dime, and I was excited we could finally take the stairs up to the main deck. 

We headed back to the entrance triumphantly, and showed the attendant our tickets again. He told us once we started that we had to finish, since there wasn’t an elevator along the way. It seemed a bit silly, but I’m sure they had to go over that information with everyone. With the spiel over we enthusiastically bounded up the 600 steps. 

As we went we took little mini breaks to take photos and admire the view. For whatever reason, climbing up an open air staircase was a lot more fun than just taking an elevator up to the main deck. I suppose it’s like admiring the view from a mountain after a hike, it feels like you’ve earned the view, and it makes it that much more rewarding. 

By the time we had gotten back to the main deck, I had started to sweat a bit, but it certainly wasn’t too gruelling by any means. We did another quick lap around the observation deck before heading back down. Once we got back to ground level, we wandered around the area a little, finding a nearby shrine and park, strolling around while taking in the sights. 

Eventually, we needed a new destination. Henry had also caught wind of a sake festival in Roppongi, which was a neighbourhood I’d never been to, but was right by Tokyo tower. It was a bit of a trek, about 30 ish minutes from where we were, but we were both in good spirits, so we set off.

After a while, we arrived at Roppongi Hills, a big mega complex that features a 54 story tower, and was holding a sake festival. We had to buy a starter set to enjoy the festival, which included a plastic cup and some tokens to spend on various sake on offer. I’m not a huge sake drinker, but I enjoy it in smaller quantities, so the tokens we got in the starter set was plenty for me. 

We picked our sake choices basically at random, but we both got to try two different kinds of sake, and of course had small sips of each other’s selection. By the time we finished we both felt fairly satisfied, so we decided to start making our way back to Shinjuku. Along the way, Henry noticed the Mori art museum was here, and we decided to check it out. 

I was already starting to peter out, but I figured a museum was usually low-intensity, even if it is a lot of standing. The theme for the art museum was Machine Love, video games, AI, and contemporary art. Honestly it was the perfect theme for me, so I actually found myself getting sort of intrigued at what I might see.

The first few exhibits were pretty interesting, though after that I felt they started to fall a bit flat. Many of the installations would have descriptions raising interesting questions, that I never could really see or interpret the artist’s answers to those questions. A lot of the installations just felt like videos of random 3D models of lower quality. Modern art and I are somewhat hit or miss. 

We spent around 45 minutes exploring the art museum before finally making our way back to Shinjuku. At the station we found a conveyor belt sushi restaurant and had a big meal together, trying to recoup our strength. Henry ordered quite a few dishes, and frankly some rather strange ones, but he seemed to really enjoy the experience. 

When we got back to the hotel we both hit our beds and didn’t really move after that. We averaged around 20,000 steps each day during our trip, but today really felt like a strong contender for most time walking, or at least time on our feet. It was probably for the best that we turned in early, tomorrow was our last full day in Tokyo, and there was no way we were going to waste it. 

Despite my sore feet, I got to see a landmark that had been on my list for a long time, and explore an area of Tokyo I didn’t know much about. As always, having good company made it all the more fun, and pushed me to visit places I wouldn't normally go to, like the art museum. I was sad we only had one more day in Tokyo, but that meant we had all new adventures to look forward to.