Time to get a bird’s eye view of the city – so we set off nice and early to beat the queues to get to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, where the city’s government is based. It’s big. Very big. 48 stories big, in fact. Apparently it was designed to resemble an integrated circuit, while also evoking the look of a Gothic cathedral. It is the tallest city hall in the world.
The observation deck is on the 45th floor (there are two of them in the two towers, which open on alternate days) and the view from the window certainly gives you an idea of the vastness of this city of 40.8 milion people (in the metro area – a mere 13.96 million in the city itself).
The entrance hall to the building itself is pretty grand, too. From there, it’s a short trip to the madness of Shibuya, which we visited on our first night -Halloween. Possibly not our most sensible idea but a lot of fun. So what’s it like in the daytime? This is the famous Shibuya crossing:
Over the years Shibuya’s instantly recognizable crossing has been the backdrop for countless movies and television shows both in Japan and overseas thanks to its neon-lit buildings and mix of cultures and trendsetters, just like New York’s Times Square. The video shows a relatively quiet day. On average, over 2.4 million people cross Shibuya every day, roughly 2,500 pedestrians on every crossing.
Then back to the hotel to prepare ourselves for the main event that night – a visit to TeamLab Planets.
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