Metropolitan Government Offices
Our first stop of the day was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices Building – a cumbersome name but one with no fear of being done for false advertising. The building towers 48 stories over nearby Shinjuku Park and has an observation floor right at the very top, reachable via its own high speed lift, where you’ll find a cafe and gift shop.
Views over the city are fantastic with Mount Fuji visible on a clear day (sadly not today) and the neighbouring skyscrapers there for all to see. No more craning your neck upwards to catch a glimpse of these wonderful buildings – from the observation deck you can look down on them and take some stunning photographs although, according to Wikipedia, you’re not allowed to use tripods.
Park Waterfall
I snapped a few bird’s eye photos of the surrounding area and bought a few bits of tat from the gift shop before heading off to the park nearby.
Shinjuku Park is nicely laid out, with a wide waterfall greeting visitors coming from the direction of the station. The open space in front is a popular spot for people to excercise and practise martial arts or just to meet friends on the steps nearby.
The only downer is that the bushes and undergrowth around the park are absolutely crawling – if you’ll pardon the pun – with an array of spiders not usually seen outside of the type of nightmare you get after a heavy night on the cheese. Arachnophobics take note.
Park Spider
After our brief sojourn around the park we headed off to the NTT Intercommunications Centre, a kind of museum-cum-art-installation located on the 4th floor of the Tokyo Opera City building. Our map turned out to be out of date at this point because a new expressway appeared to have sprung up in the interval since it was printed. This caused a little confusion, easily resolved by popping into a nearby police station and inflicting my broken Japanese on an unsuspecting receptionist.
The NTT installation was… interesting to say the least. The highlight was probably getting to play with the weird and wonderful Tenori-On musical thing. It looks stupid and a waste of time, right up until the moment you start playing on it and before you know it you’re late for your next appointment, dammit.
Which is pretty much how we came to miss the Japanese Sword Museum, so we’ll have to do that another day.