And of course the view from the observation deck! At 333 meters, it is one of the world's highest self-supporting steel towers and the tallest man-made structure in Japan. The garish colour scheme is for air safety regulations (in fact a lot of the taller building in Tokyo have bright strobes flashing on them during the day- better than being bright orange and white).

The air around Tokyo is usually pretty hazy, preventing viewing for any great distance, but on this particular day the wind was really blowing, promising clear condititions. I got home from work and grabbed my camera and hotfooted it over to the tower. It's a fair walk from Mita- around 30 minutes. It was during the walk I realised that just because you can see something, it doesn't mean it's close- it really is huge!