The Tokyo Tower has fallen at least three times to cinematic conquerors. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Kong have all dispatched it; yet there it stands in Shiba Park at three hundred and thirty-three meters tall and weighing four thousand tons, a monument to post-World War II Japan’s economic rise.
Modeled after, and about nine metrrs taller than, Paris’ Eiffel Tower, the white and orange Tokyo Tower was designed to serve as an antenna for nine television and five FM radio stations. But its real value to Tokyo, since its opening in 1958, has been as a tourist attraction.
Tokyo Tower Attractions
The Tokyo Tower has observation platforms both at the one-hundred-and fifty and two- hundred-and-fifty metre levels. While the lower one is considered the main observatory, both of them provide visitors with astonishing views of Tokyo, and on clear days, of Ginza, .Mount Fuji, and Tokyo Bay.
The Tower is home to other separate admission attractions, including the first floor aquarium with over fifty thousand very small fish, and the third floor’s Wax Works Museum and holographic Mysterious Walking Zone. The final, and perhaps most entertaining, attraction is the fourth floor’s Trick Art Gallery with its curious three-dimensional images.
One of the oddest things about the Tokyo Tower’s location is that it looms over the14th century Zojoji Temple, which was moved to its present location in 1598. The Zojoji Temple is one of Tokyo’s major temples, and was the family temple of the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from the Edo Period to the Meiji era. The juxtaposition of the two structures provides a perfect bridge between the old and the new Tokyo.
Accommodations Close to the Tokyo Tower
Situated in the heart of Tokyo’s “Twinkle Town” Rappongi district, the B Roppongi Hotel offers its guests the perfect location from which to sample Tokyo’s nightlife, and is just a stone’s throw from the Tokyo Tower and Zojoji Temple.
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