Posts Tagged ‘tower’

Tokyo Sky Tree Tower opens to the public

The world’s tallest tower, the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower opened yesterday to the public. Around 200,000 people were expected to visit the tower on the first day alone.

About 8000 lucky people who had advance reservations were able to go up the tower to the observation decks.

“I left my house at 5 a.m. to get on the first shinkansen of the day,” said Norio Sone, a 77-year-old visitor from Niigata Prefecture, while waiting in a long line for an elevator up to the observation deck.

“I wanted to climb up the world’s tallest building,” Sone said, but he added that he was disappointed by the cloudy weather.

The tower is expected to bring in 32 million visitors in the first year of operation, bringing an economic boost to surrounding area.

World’s tallest tower Tokyo Skytree to open next week

The Tokyo Skytree, the world’s tallest tower, is set to open in just 4 days on May 22. The 634 meter tower is double the height of the Eiffel Tower and 2nd highest structure in the world behind Burj Khalifa .

The tower is set to become a new tourist attraction in itself with more than 300 shops and restaurants, a planetarium and an aquarium. The tower will be used as a radio/television broadcast and communications tower.

“People will use the Tobu line to go to Tokyo Skytree and they will shop in Tobu shops when they get there,” said Masayuki Kubota, who oversees the equivalent of $2 billion in assets in Tokyo at Daiwa SB Investments Ltd. “It’s a very good investment.” He doesn’t own Tobu shares, he said in this article by Bloomberg.

Built in one of the most earthquake prone places in the world, the tower stands on three legs with a central column, typical of a tripod.

The tower stands over the Asakusa district in Tokyo. It is one station away on the Tobu Skytree Line. The tower has its own station aptly named “Tokyo Skytree Station”.

Here is the official site for the Tokyo Skytree tower.

Our first post on the Tokyo Skytree in 2009.