Fade to Night
The immense complexity of Tokyo unfolds beneath a sky heavy with evening cloud from the vantage of the first deck of the Tokyo Skytree, Japan.
Our family had never visited Japan and we opted to stay for a week tacked on to a family visit to Hong Kong, splitting our time between the mountains near Nagano and the incredible human hive that is Tokyo. The Tokyo Skytree is the second highest building in the world and still quite a bit shorter than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. My youngest son is oddly fascinated with the world's tallest buildings, so we made time to ride the ridiculously fast elevator up to the eyrie above the city. It ascends 350 vertical meters in approximately 50 ear-popping seconds. There is a shorter, faster-moving queue maintained for foreign tourists, which is a very thoughtful gesture. However, the crowds packing the observation deck make one feel as if bees actually have quite a spacious arrangement. On this particular evening, the full moon was rising on the eastern side of the tower and the sun was setting on the western side. I had thought to photograph both phenomena but this proved impossible as the humanity was so dense and viscous that I could not navigate from one side to the other quickly enough to capture both photographs.
It was difficult for me to comprehend the reality of this many people in the same place. As of 2014 Tokyo is the largest city in the world with over 38 million people calling the greater megalopolis home. That's over 2,600 people in every square kilometer. The numbers simply transcend meaning to my mind.
Fade to Night
The immense complexity of Tokyo unfolds beneath a sky heavy with evening cloud from the vantage of the first deck of the Tokyo Skytree, Japan.
Our family had never visited Japan and we opted to stay for a week tacked on to a family visit to Hong Kong, splitting our time between the mountains near Nagano and the incredible human hive that is Tokyo. The Tokyo Skytree is the second highest building in the world and still quite a bit shorter than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. My youngest son is oddly fascinated with the world's tallest buildings, so we made time to ride the ridiculously fast elevator up to the eyrie above the city. It ascends 350 vertical meters in approximately 50 ear-popping seconds. There is a shorter, faster-moving queue maintained for foreign tourists, which is a very thoughtful gesture. However, the crowds packing the observation deck make one feel as if bees actually have quite a spacious arrangement. On this particular evening, the full moon was rising on the eastern side of the tower and the sun was setting on the western side. I had thought to photograph both phenomena but this proved impossible as the humanity was so dense and viscous that I could not navigate from one side to the other quickly enough to capture both photographs.
It was difficult for me to comprehend the reality of this many people in the same place. As of 2014 Tokyo is the largest city in the world with over 38 million people calling the greater megalopolis home. That's over 2,600 people in every square kilometer. The numbers simply transcend meaning to my mind.