not exactly from 市川のアイリンクタウンの展望室

Following a tip I received online I took a train from central Tokyo to the city of Ichikawa to the east of Tokyo. There is a 45-story building in Ichikawa (called I-Line Town) that towers above everything around it and provides a potentially spectacular free view of Tokyo, including the Sky Tree. Unfortunately, the free observation deck is behind thick, hazy glass, and there are numerous things on the other side of the glass that obstruct the otherwise impressive view.

On the day I went it was extremely humid so I couldn’t see much of anything in Tokyo from the 展望室. For best results go in the early morning or at dusk.

The best view was the one shown in today’s photo which was from the glass elevator, not the room with the view, which looked toward a less humid portion of Tokyo (Ichikawa 市川市 actually).

The tip, by the way, came from this photo which I saw on Flickr.

Posted on January 10th, 2015 under Japan. Tags: aerial photography, mt. fuji, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600, sky tree, sunset, Tokyo. Comments Off on Tokyo from a glass elevator

Today is the long-awaited opening of the Tokyo Skytree. With the high demand to check out Tokyo from the top, you would have had to have won a lottery months ago to ascend the Skytree this week. Supposedly, you can get a ticket a bit easier beginning in mid-July. In any case, admission isn’t cheap. Look to pay between 2,000 and 3,500 yen (> $40 US) to check out the view from the Tokyo Skytree.

I took today’s photo a couple years before the Skytree was completed from the Rainbow Bridge. You can see the under-construction Skytree to the far right in this pic.

Posted on May 22nd, 2012 under Japan. Tags: buildings, rainbow bridge, sky tree, Tokyo. Comments: 1

I took today’s photo of a Japanese man observing the construction of the Tokyo Sky Tree back in early May of 2010. I was near Ikebukuro, approaching home, after a long day of biking around Tokyo. Since then the Sky Tree has grown by more than 100 meters.

Posted on December 26th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: sky tree, Tokyo. Comments Off on Tokyo Sky Tree observation

“Seihoku no Kaze” is a good restaurant with a nice view on the Waseda University campus. I was there at night and the windows were wet with rain so I went back the next day to take this photo.

A few things to note about this pic…
The direction is east and basically follows the Tozai Line. You can pretty much see the above ground view of the next few stations from Waseda like Kagurazaka, Iidabashi, Kudanshita, Takebashi, and Otemachi.
To the left, in the far distance, you can see the mostly complete Tokyo Sky Tree.
To the right of the Tokyo Sky Tree (but still on the left side of the picture), you can see part of the Tokyo Dome and rides at Tokyo Dome City.

Posted on August 19th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: sky tree, Tokyo, waseda university. Comments: 1

I took today’s photo from a moving train on the way to Nikko back in February. The structure being built out the window was the Tokyo Sky Tree, which was less than 300 meters high at the time. Now it is up to almost 400 meters. When finished the Tokyo Sky Tree will be 634 meters high, surpassing the next tallest artificial structure in Japan by almost 300 meters.

Posted on May 31st, 2010 under Japan. Tags: sky tree, Tokyo. Comments Off on Tokyo Sky Tree (東京スカイツリー)