climbing tokyo tower

Hi,

I live in America, but I've been to Japan many times. I've enjoyed all of my visits there. Every visit has been as a tourist, not as a resident.

To get my Japan fix I tune into NHK World on satellite TV. This weekend on the program Tokyo Eye there was a segment about Tokyo Tower.

I am familiar with taking the elevator up to the observation deck, but this report said that one could climb the tower. He didn't say how far up one could climb, but the video did show him on a stairway with lots of protective cage around him.

Now, I don't mind riding the elevator up to the observation deck, but being scared of heights I would not climb any number of stairs to get that far off the ground. (I was even scared of being in the Tokyo Metropolitan Building near Shinjuku. I stayed several feet away from the windows.)

The Tokyo Tower web page does not mention being able to climb the tower. Does anybody know about this?

Thanks.

Mike Femyer

There are two observation decks. One about 1/2 of the way up the tower, the other about halfway between deck 1 and the very top. The stairs of which you speak only go up to the first deck, and it doesn't affect the cost of going up there (about 800 yen last I checked; an additional 600 yen for going to the second deck).

If the weather is bad, the stairs are closed, and it goes without saying that the view won't be very good.

I wonder why anybody would want to climb the stairs to get to the top of Tokyo Tower... Maybe, architectual reasons? I would just take the elevator to save time and energy.

I climbed up and back down again Got some photos somewhere, mainly it was 6 stupid boys having some fun.