Tokyo Tower

I've never been one for visiting towers.  In all my years as a Seattleite, I've never once been up to the top of the Space Needle.  I've even taken groups of international students there for sightseeing and didn't go up!  I'm just not a heights person.  Okay, maybe it's gone beyond the "just don't like it level" as they make me weak in the knees.  Despite my trepidation, my son is so excited by the large orange and white tower he can see from various vantage points.  I decided to put my stress aside and take him up (plus it is going to be closing for construction starting next week for who knows how long, so I could either bite the bullet or miss my chance...).

  (Zojoji Temple)

We leave the apartment and take our time getting there.  I also want to check out various parks in the neighborhood.  My son has been telling me "I want to meet new friends."  This breaks my heart because I know we've been so consumed with getting things done that he's tired of entertaining himself.  Back in the states he had a big yard to play in anytime he wanted.  Here, he's stuck with us.  Also, I know he misses his friends so much.  He talks about them all the time. 

As soon as he sees the first park, he bolts off  to climb onto the big metal animals on a spring.  His favorites are the dolphin and a duck that I nicknamed Donald.  He proceeds to "race" them, always magically winning, even though they don't actually move.  He goes down the slide a couple times and then he's done.  There are no other children at this park, just like the others we have visited.  He looks at me and says "I wish my friends were here."  I don't blame him.  The parks are so basic, you have to be super creative to make them fun.  It will take some getting used to after the fantastic themed parks we used to go to around Seattle. 

We continue on our way and find the tower.  My son is excited.  He eagerly enters the elevator to go up.  He runs around asking questions about what things are and so forth.  His dad points out his new office and they both love standing on the "lookdown windows."  I stay as close to the center of the building as possible and tried not to lose my breakfast.

After seeing all we could see, we left and found the next park.  This time - there were kids!!!  Oh, joy!  It's not that there aren't kids in Tokyo.  I've seen a ton of them.  They just aren't in parks.  They are riding their bikes going who knows where and following parents on errands and so forth.  I can't tell you how relieved I was and my son played harder at that park than any other so far.  While, he didn't make a friend, he did seem happy to interact with others his age. 

It's now lunchtime and we seek out some bento.  There are restaurants everywhere with so many options, but we can take the bento to the last park of the day.  We find a chain restaurant that we know has food we will like and get take out.  I pick a seasonal mixed rice with ginger pork, tempura, grilled fish, veggies, and hijiki salad.

The last park of the day was once again deserted, but was still the most impressive park of the day.  There was an actual play structure versus the typical metal fare of swings, rocker animals, a slide, and possibly some monkey bars.  My son was able to get some serious energy out by climbing repeatedly and going from toy to toy.  I've noticed that parks in Tokyo have a lot more trees than those in Osaka.  It's lovely, but at this time of year, trees equal semis (sem-me) or cicadas.  Semi are huge "tree crickets" that are super loud this time of year.  I once had one drop it's exoskeleton on me.  Gross!  Turn up the volume on the video below to hear their "song."

Now that we are here and getting settled, I am looking forward to seeing the sights.  But from now on, I think the sights will be closer to ground level.