Japan Trip XXI: Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

After a day walking around Nakano Broadway, our legs were quite sore. However, we had a mission: Steve needed to find a toilet seat, and for all the wonders available at Nakano Broadway, toilet seats were simply nowhere to be found. Which is odd, since pretty much every bathroom in the country seemed to have these things.

So, we went to a central government-type area of Tokyo where we might find a toilet seat for Steve, as well as doing just a little bit more sightseeing.

For whatever reason, the first few places we went to still didn't have what we were looking for. Most of us waited outside of a fancy-looking mall for a while, waiting as Steve and Lindsay searched for Steve's MacGuffin.

Finally, we went to a more gaudy-looking place with advertisements all over the walls and a guy outside presumably yelling at people about how good their deals are or something. Naturally, that's where they found Steve's toilet seat.

We then continued to walk around, with Steve happily lugging around a massive box with a satisfied smile on his face.

Lindsay was leading us toward a tower where we would be able to look out over the whole city. It was a bit of a trek, but we eventually reached a massive building with two tall towers. This was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku.

Access to the observation decks was free--we simply had to allow our bags to be searched. I'm not sure whether or not they had to search Steve's toilet seat, though. I wasn't paying attention.

We took the elevator to a floor near the top of the building where there were windows on all sides, looking out over the metropolis of Tokyo, which was basically a sea of lights at that time of night. We spent some time gawking over the scenery, then a few of us starting taking video as b-roll for the documentary.

Next to some windows were pictures showing the same view from those windows during the day, with helpful notes and the names of the surrounding buildings.

There were several gift shops on the observation deck, each one selling snacks and souvenirs.

There was also a restaurant up there, but it sounded too fancy for us judging by the piano music we heard coming from that direction. Unfortunately, the restaurant was curtained off from the rest of the observation deck, which sucked since that side of the deck provided the best view of Tokyo Tower in the distance.

Still, there was plenty for us to see. When we had our fill of the view we made our way back to the elevator. We had a big day coming up in the morning, so needed to return home and get some rest.