Tokyo; Friday, 18 April, 2025

I had an early breakfast and then headed out of the hotel, back over to the Skytree to take in the views of the city in the daylight. I aimed to be there just as it was opening, and consequently from joining the queue to being in a lift took less than 5 minutes, which was a distinct improvement on the previous evening. Whilst it was a bit hazy this morning I was still able to make out more of the city and work out the attractions I was aiming on visiting. I spent about 30 minutes taking in the view before heading for the lifts back down and this time getting straight into a lift at the first attempt.

From the skytree I caught the train one stop across the river to the Asakusa district and one of the city’s top attractions, and consequently busiest, the Senso-ji. This is the oldest temple in the city, dating back to 645, older even than the city of Kyoto, so you can see why it’s an important site.

The temple complex starts at the Kaminari Mon gate, close to the metro station, which is famous in its own right for the gigantic lantern that hangs down inside the gateway, with long queues of people wanting to get a photo of themselves standing underneath it. Behind the gate the Nakamise shopping street heads in a straight line to the inner gate of the temple complex, lined with small stalls that traditionally would have sold items related to ceremonies at the temple, but today are more tourist rather than believer focused. It was also one of the most crowded spaces I have ever been in!

Having battled my way down Nakamise street I made it to the main temple buildings, which were still pretty busy, but did at least have space for you to be able to breath. I spent a good amount of time wandering around the complex, mostly trying to avoid walking into other peoples photos and take some of my own without anyone in directly in them. I then headed down one of the side streets off of the temple to find somewhere to grab a quick lunch before my main afternoon activity that I’d booked.

After lunch I headed back towards the metro station and the river to the offices of Tokyo Cruise where I was booked onto an afternoon cruise down the Sumida River from near the Tokyo Skytree to near the Tokyo Tower. The 50-minute cruise wasn’t the most interesting as the commentary was drowned out by the sound of the engine, so I’m not certain what I was looking at, but it was still a nice way of moving around the city, and I got to see the packed city centre from a different viewpoint.

The river cruise ended at Hinode Pier, close to the mouth of the Sumida River where it empties into Tokyo Bay, and more importantly only about 2Km from the Tokyo Tower, the other of the city’s observation towers. On my way over to the Tower I stopped off at the Zojo-ji temple, in part to look around the temple, but also as from it’s grounds it offers some of the best views of the Tokyo Tower.

Having taken in the temple I walked the short distance onto the Tower and was shocked to find how quiet it was, being able to walk up to the ticket counter and then straight into a lift up to the viewing platform about 150m up the building. The tower itself was built in the 1950s and is modelled on the Eiffel tower in Paris albeit being slightly taller and without the restaurant at the top, and having lifts just go up straight from the centre of the base rather than sloping up the lower pylons.

At 150m up you’re still below quite a lot of the neighbouring buildings, so it’s a very different view to that from the Skytree, which makes it worth visiting both, as from here you feel like your within the heart of the city. I spent quite a bit of time at the tower, stopping off in the café for a maccha ice cream and coffee before getting in position to take in the sunset with a window spot looking due west through the tall buildings which meant I was able to watch, and film, the sun descend down below the horizon and then the city slowly light up as darkness fell. Sunset was just after 18:15, but by the time I left the tower it was almost 19:00.

From the tower I caught a series of subway trains back to Asakusa to have another visit to Senso-ji, this time at night, which was much more pleasant that during the day. Whilst the buildings are closed the whole site is still open, and floodlit so you’re able to wander around the site with only a handful of other people around.

After taking in the temple complex at night I wandered back through Nakamise before stopping off at a Ramen restaurant for a very pleasant and filling (and ridiculously cheap for the centre of the tourist heartland of a major international city). From the restaurant I headed back to the metro and caught the train back to my hotel.