Posted March 5, 2014 by Jonelle Patrick Just another day in Japan

How Underwhelming Can You Get?

Tokyo SkyTree. You can’t miss it. It’s that gigantic over-hyped TV tower rearing its unremarkable, yet insistently lit-up head out beyond Asakusa. For twenty bucks you can go up it and see the view. Except today. Today all I could see was, well, this.

The most expensive clouds I have ever seen.

Fortunately for us view-challenged types, every vista is equipped with massive photo touchscreens that have a quasi-nifty interactive feature that lets you point your finger anywhere and move around a magnified and/or night view of what would be right outside the window if only there weren’t so many damn clouds in the way.

Okay, have to admit, this slightly made up for the lack of actual view.

I imagine that the twenty-buck view itself might be slightly better than the nine-buck one at Tokyo Tower, but mostly because if you’re standing inside the SkyTree, you aren’t looking at it.

TokyoTowerView — The view from Tokyo Tower, with SkyTree poking up underwhelmingly in the background.

SkyTree — …this? (I’d kinda like to say, NO CONTEST. heh.)

If you’d like to visit the Asakusa area the next time you’re in Tokyo, directions & maps are on my website, The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had.

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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Tokyo

A young woman dressed as a Gothic Lolita is found dead in a car with two strangers. But the more Yumi Hata learns about her friend’s death, the more she’s convinced it was murder…*read more*

Jonelle Patrick View All

Writing mystery books set in Tokyo is mostly what I do, but I also blog about the odd stuff I see every day in Japan. I'm a graduate of Stanford University and the Sendagaya Japanese Institute in Tokyo, and a member of the International Thriller Writers, the Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters In Crime. When I'm not in Tokyo, I live in San Francisco. I also host a travel site called The Tokyo Guide I Wish I'd Had, so if you're headed to Japan and want to check out the places I take my friends when they're in town, take a look!