Tokyo Tower

Our weekends have started to center around football since we discovered that the Notre Dame Club of Japan has gamewatches up in Tokyo.  Adam loves having other alumni to cheer with, and it's actually quite fascinating hearing what brings them all to Japan.  It's interesting to compare their experience of the country with ours.  Plus our Irish are undefeated so far this season!

In an effort to inject some non-football into our weekend, we decided to head up to Tokyo early and explore the area.  Boy is it a big city.  We started with the Tokyo Tower because it was near the hotel showing the game, and we figured that a good starting point with any city is a nice aerial introduction.

I love that in big cities there always seems to be a festival going on somewhere.  Elena so excited that they were handing out balloons.  :)

Madeleine got one too, until she freed it (despite it being tied to the stroller)

On our way to the tower we passed through the Zojoji Temple,

which had a special garden for unborn children (miscarried, aborted, or stillborn).

It was quite beautiful and touching, all the little statues of children that parents 

decorate with handmade clothing.

I loved how bright and cheerful it all was, 

such a celebration of life.

For once, I remembered to ask to be in a picture!  

Of course, I rather prefer Madeleine's 

mischievous nose wrinkle here.  :)

Baby holding Daddy's hand, is there anything cuter?

The Tokyo Tower!

Designed to imitate the Eiffel Tower, it was built to be an antenna tower (Make those giant towers beautiful?  Genius).  Obviously, tourism is an important secondary purpose as well.  A neat fact:  although the Tokyo Tower is larger than its sister by 13 meters, it is almost half as heavy (twice as light?) due to advancements in steel manufacturing and construction methods.  It weighs only 4,000 tons, 3,300 tons less than the Eiffel Tower.  (More fun facts)  

It was also interesting to learn online that about a third of the steel was recycled from scrapped US tanks, probably from the Korean War.  Sources varied on the details, but here was an interesting article about how the tower has slowly transformed from a symbol of innovation to one of nostalgia.  Especially since it's been replaced as the tallest tower in Japan, when they had to build a taller one to support the switchover to digital television.  I thought the history of the Tokyo Tower was much cooler than a few extra feet.

 Views from the top

Madeleine checking out the views.

It's painted orange and white for air safety regulations,

but I thought the colors were so striking.

I could have taken pictures all day,

I loved how the steel sculpture changed from every angle.

There was even a tiny amusement park at the foot of the tower

Haha.  I got to ride with them.  :)

Elena thought she was riding a roller coaster,

and very seriously kept one hand waving up in the air.

The Notre Dame game this weekend starts at 4:30am on Sunday for us (yikes), so the girls and I are skipping this one.  Looking forward to a more local adventure!