451

That's how high up you can go in the Tokyo Sky Tree, out of 600something kilometers. That's about 280  up miles 1479 feet/.28 miles (451 km, I mean).
EDIT: I don't do units. ._. As my sister points out, at 280 miles up, you probably wouldn't have enough breathable air.

I suppose that's tall.

I went up expecting just another tower kind of view, since I've seen a couple and usually it just ends up being cityscape. And when I saw pictures other people took, it was like "well I guess that's okay."

Really though, it's something that needs to be experienced.

I went up there on my last full day in Japan, and spent the night with a spectacular view of the Sky Tree. Really, it was quite a perfect last day that I had, which makes up for the slightly-rushed-ahhhh-lunch-hour-stress I felt as I was going to the airport on the 25th haha.

We got up there - by we, I mean my Japanese-cousin-(maybe)-on-my-mom's-side-who-did-a-homestay-With-us-in-'94 Iori and her four year old (who, while adorable, made me realize that I do not want children any time soon) - it was about 6 pmish and not quite sunset. But wow. You could see buildings for miles and miles, just nonstop as far as the horizon extended. Tokyo tower, surrounded by tall (lols) buildings, seemed almost puny. I think Iori mentioned that Tokyo Tower is about half the size of sky tree (which is still pretty large). Of in the distance, amidst a crowd of people taking pictures, you could see Mt. Fuji as well, making for quite a nice view. they also had digital maps of the area which displayed time-lapse videos as well as maps (with names and train lines) and 360 panoramic views.

Looooook Mt. Fuji!

The opening theme for Game of Thrones (if you haven't seen it, you should, it's quite excellent) was playing in my head the whole time during the day. I suppose it was a little appropriate.

By the time we finished walking around the regular level - at a mere 350 m - the sun was well on its way to setting, and then we went to the upper deck (cost an extra 1,000 yen though). The upper deck kind of spirals up around the tower, so you're constantly going up. You can actually notice a difference though; I didn't think it would matter much but the buildings are noticeably smaller. All the city lights were just coming on as well, shining like small gems out in the distance. It was absolutely beautiful to walk around, watching as the sky got darker and the land got brighter.

Honestly though, the Tokyo night view beats the pants off the daytime cityscape, in my opinion (though as Iori pointed out, you can't see Fuji, so my solution is that twilight is the best because the lights are coming on, but you get this awesome silhouette of Mt. Fuji). But there are just so many lights, and the bridges are lit and colored, and we even saw fireworks way off in the distance.

It looked like a giant sea of stars, all bright and twinkly. Just... so many lights. You could see Tokyo Tower off in the distance near some other buildings, but from that far up they all looked like small toothpicks. Poor Tokyo Tower.

That small red thing is Tokyo Tower at dusk.

Oh, it's worth mentioning that while we actually went up to the Sky Tree Observation deck around 6ish, we actually had to come to the Sky Tree much earlier. They were handing out reservation slips for times that you could come buy a ticket - kind of like a fastpass (think Disney) but where you still have to buy a ticket. But you go for a time when you can buy said ticket, and you need one ticket per person who's going to go up; you can't just send one person to buy them all (though you *can* send one person to get your "fastpass" ticket reservation time cards, just make sure they get enough) since you'll be going straight up to the observation deck from the line. The line is just the start of your "standing in line" experience. Actually, once you get it, you go through a small security area, and then up some magnificent elevators (they're also all twinkly! Ours had a phoenix on it). That actually was maybe a 10-15 minute wait, so not too bad. Actually, once we were inside, standing in line wasn't all that bad because they had giant TV screens with "scenes" from around Tokyo (they were animated, in a kind of giant-Where's-Waldo?-world-sense). But they also explained certain cultural things about the Tokyo area, or general Japanese culture things (in English) so it was actually pretty interesting to wait in line! ...or maybe I'm just nerdy.

No, actually, I'm really nerdy. Tokyo Sky Tree got me the final two prefectures I needed to tag in the 3DS's streetpass game (they're this thing where you can wirelessly swap information via your "Mii" character, including, if you choose, what country and state/prefecture/province/area you're from). So exciting.

sunset

Anyways anyways. I think we got our reservation slips around 1 or 2 pm, and the time we could enter the line to buy our tickets was 5:30-6. Paired with the extra 100ish meters, it makes for the perfect time to go up, since you get the day view, the bonus sunset view, *and* the night view. And it's not like there's nothing to do around the sky tree. I think it's one of the HUGEST shopping/etc. areas I've visited! I'm pretty sure you could wander around the whole day and still not see everything there is to see there (excluding the Sky Tree).

penguiiiiins (in the nicest penguin exhibit I've seen)

First, it's called Sky Tree Town (I think? Or Sky Town. I forget) . Second, it has a planetarium (!) and AND AND AND AN AQUARIUM. Actually, the aquarium, on its own, is actually one of the coolest aquariums I've been to, despite definitely not being the largest, nor having the most amount of exhibits. But the presentation of the different wildlife - including the penguins, which normally, I'm not really that excited to look at because EVERY aquarium in Japan has penguins, no joke - were aesthetically pleasing and informative. The tanks were absolutely gorgeous.

The planetarium was also pretty spectacular. I think it was a little misleading; by planetarium, they mostly meant 40 - 60 minute IMAX shows about space and stars, two of which looked like they were made specifically for the enjoyment of small children (though with Japan and its cute characters, who knows). There was one more that looked interesting, and it only showed at night (maybe that was the actual planetarium part). The one we went to see the morning I left Japan was about how the sky looked during the Edo period, which was kinda interesting, but was unfortunately all in Japanese so maybe I fell asleep during part of it.

Other than those two, Sky Tree has a staggering 7 or 8 (I forget if the top floor had things; I don't think it did?) floors of stuff, plus there were shops on B3 and B1 (I don't know about B2?). Granted, floors 6 and 7 were food, but still. Loads of stuff. There was a plastic food shop I have huge regrets about not having enough time to look into, but I was getting a little worried about canceling my cell phone and making my bus to the airport. I thought I would be able to get lunch quickly. Ha! LUNCH CROWDS, YOU HAVE WON THAT ROUND.

My willpower crumbled like a delicious pie crust

That being said, lunch did go somewhat quickly because I went to an "Edo style" standing sushi bar. It probably didn't help that I went and bought the only purse I bought in Japan. I COULDN'T HELP IT. It had tessellations of Winnie the Pooh. How could I not buy something like this? LOOKIT HOW CUTE THE TESSELLATIONS ARE.

Jump back to the night before though - my last night in Tokyo and in Japan (for now anyways). Thanks to Iori, we were able to snag a room at the Tobu Levant Tokyo Hotel (which markets itself as the closest large hotel to Narita) so I didn't have to worry about going all the way back to Chigasaki and then back out to Narita, which was nice. I was able to catch a bus instead (though it probably took just as long). Ta-Q-bin services, which let you send your luggage on ahead to the airport, is a godsend (I had two large checked pieces).

The hotel though. Oh my goodness.

I'm not really used to staying in hotels, let alone nice ones. I think the majority of people my age will concur; hotels are kind of expensive. Recently, I've sprung for business hotels, which are nice, but still rather austere, or for budget ryokan - the Japanese style inns, which are still pretty darn nice (but beds are nicer, after having slept on a futon for two years). The Tobu Levant? Oh. My. God.

This was a *nice* hotel.

And on top of that, our room was the "Sorakara-chan" (Sky Tree's mascot) room. I was just told before that "there might be something with Sorakara-chan in it.

Yeah. This was the door to our room.

This was the first sign something was up.

Then when we opened the door, we were greeted to this:

The ceiling area.

Oh. My. God.

EVEN THE BEDS.

EVERYTHING had Sorakara-chan on it. And that wasn't even the end of it. It was that classic, "but wait, there's more!" Literally. The room had a small room annexed to it.

You walk past the beds and turn to the left and BAM. Holy cow.

This was our view from the window. FROM THE WINDOW.

I think the dogs and the penguin thing were also other mascots. Probably. As my cousin pointed out, the weird penguin with the star on it is a girl, because she has high heels on.

Oh, I should mention the name of the mascot. Sorakara-chan, for those of you who don't speak Japanese, means something like "from the sky"-chan (chan is a kind of cute prefix for small kids or girls). Considering that she's the mascot for the Sky Tree, it's actually pretty appropriate (and cute. Can't forget cute).

But I mean holy smokes. Cra-zy. Crazy crazy crazy. There were so many... character themed things. Even in the bathroom, there were character things. The towels had little pictures on them and stuff. We had the most amazing view of the Sky tree from our bedroom windows, which were also gigantic. So you could go to sleep and see the Sky tree.

This is why my last night in Tokyo, despite my new 4 year old friend being kinda tired and cranky (yet still having enough energy to power an iPhone for a day and a half), was really freaking awesome. I couldn't have asked for a better "last" experience.

*

I've kind of been in this daze ever since I returned home, and as in daze, I mean like, I haven't really done much (did visit one friend) in the almost week I've been back home. I didn't adjust my clocks until yesterday, so I spent most of yesterday (thursday) thinking it was today (friday). Oh, I reactivated my phone and joined a gym. The gym has pretty much been my number one accomplishment the past few days. I did see the Expendables 2 (that was fun). That, and I've logged a probably ridiculous amount of video game hours in, since upon my return home, there have been three games I've been trying to juggle: Epic Mickey, which is indeed epic; Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance aka Kingdom Hearts 3D which I've been waiting for since I pre-ordered in while in Japan; and The World Ends With You, which I've been trying to freaking finish but I lost the game when my DS was probably stolen. Note, two of these games involve Disney, while two involve SquareEnix. Kingdom Hearts, has *both* Disney AND The World Ends With You characters (so it's kind of like getting my fix for all three but not really?)

I've also kind of been thinking about what to do with this blog, now that I've returned home. I think I'm going to keep writing in it? Hopefully I'll be not-lazy and finish writing about my extended monthish of traveling in Japan and bumming at people's houses. That's my goal. I uploaded over 2,000 pictures last night so I think I kind of... have a lot ahead of me hahaha. But yeah.

Just because I'm back in the US doesn't mean that the adventure has stopped. :) Rather, it has simply changed locations. It's cliche, yes, but life is an adventure, no?

Watch out world (and Mexican food) cause here I come!