#27 Tokyo Tower

I mentioned Tokyo Tower in another post, but I hadn't gone up at that point. I eventually did it on a Sunday afternoon in late November 2012.

Check it out!

To begin with it's cheap - only 800yen to get to the first floor, and 600yen to get to the top, the "Special Observatory". I'm not sure I would recommend a visit to the top, although it's not very expensive, I had to wait for an hour to get to the top, and the room is TINY. You could easily walk around it in one minute, and honestly if there's a long waiting time it might not be worth it.

Lovely view of Tokyo bay and the Rainbow Bridge

I would definitely recommend a visit, it offers great views of Tokyo and when I visited on a Sunday I only queued for about an hour to get to the first floor. At the first floor I bought a ticket for the top floor, and I was told I'd have to come back in an hours time. I was free to roam around but the hour did feel quite long, and the tiny room at the top wasn't as exciting as I thought!

To compare Tokyo Tower with Skytree: Tokyo Tower is alot cheaper than Skytree, and although it's only about half the height, you can see plenty up there that makes it comparable to Skytree. It's also more likely to be less crowded. You could also go to the Goverment Buildings in Shinjuku, which is free. My favourite was Skytree, followed by Tokyo Tower, and then the Government Buildings. But if you can you should visit all three - even if you don't go up.


A note for those who have been to the Eiffel Tower in France: Tokyo Tower is very slightly taller in height, but it seems to be a lot narrower in width. Also there are only two floors instead of three, and the two are much smaller than the French counterparts. Also, Tokyo Tower is totally indoors, while the Eiffel Tower is primarily outdoors. To conclude the Eiffel Tower is probably better, but if you're in Tokyo you should visit the Asian version nonetheless!

#21 Pokemon Center Tokyo

So I'd heard that the Pokemon Centre in Tokyo was a big let-down, but since I was in Japan I felt compelled to verify the rumours and decided to go there recently as part of a day out!

Located in Minato in Tokyo, the nearest station is the Hamamatsucho train station (3minute walk). This is also the closest station to Tokyo Tower (maybe a 15min walk), so you could do both in one day.

Not so fun?

I haven't watched Pokemon in like 8 years and I never played the games, so I am honestly not a huge fan, I will admit. However, I do like it and I was interested in going to check it out. It's a small shop, and doesn't have a great selection, I entered and left the shop in about 30 minutes. I went on a Sunday so it was pretty crowded too.

Once I entered the shop, I quickly realised I didn't recognize any of the characters except Pikachu. They had charmander outside but there were no toys or anything with him on it inside. The only toys were Bulbosaur and Meowth. Needless to say everything was expensive, but they didn't even have a good selection of anything either. As I found quite often in Japan, most things are aimed for Japanese people, and not Westerners. So they were plenty of phone charms (not even nice ones though!), as well as the little table cloths children use to put lunch on in school and things like that.

In the end I got a 100 yen packet of tissues with Pokemon Center on them (it was one of the very few things that actually mentioned Pokemon Center too! The Japanese need to work on their branding) and also I managed to find a Pokeball on a bottom shelf. The ball itself is hard plastic and opens in half to reveal some hard sweets and a Pokemon stamp. . .probably not worth the 500 yen but it was the one thing I was willing to buy. In Japan most souvenir and tourist type shops give you 2 bags, one to put your goods in and another as a souvenir, so I now have 2 Pokemon Center bags which in itself is pretty sweet too.

The bag was nice. . .and she gave me two!

So all in all, it probably was the let down people had said, but going there and expecting it to be terrible I actually found it was okay. I can say I've been there now, which is cool. So I wouldn't say don't go - just don't go out of your way to go either. If you only have a short time in Tokyo there are hundreds of places that are much better to spend your time! But if you find yourself with time to spare like I had, it's worth a little visit.

The shop itself is located really just across from the station in a high rise building. It's on the 3rd floor I think but they have escalators that take you straight up so you won't get lost. There's nothing really in the direct area of the Pokemon Center, so don't plan to spend more than an hour there, although for those who like nature there's a lovely landscape garden with a small 150 yen entrance fee just across the road.

They had koi fish and turtles in the pond!