Tokyo is full of distinct buildings that make its skyline unique. The Tokyo Metro Building in west Shinjuku is one such building known for its twin towers. It was often depicted in classic anime series (particularly CLAMP series) as a source of power. In reality, it's a governmental building which administrates all the city affairs of Shinjuku and surrounding neighborhoods.
Besides that, the building serves another purpose which attracts quite a few tourists. Its observation deck is one of the best spots in Tokyo to view the whole city. And for free! I've been here several times before, and wrote about it too over 10 years ago.
I was in Tokyo for school business, and as school business concluded, it was near sunset and I was near the Metro Building. I met up with another teacher and some of our students, and we walked to the building to catch the sunset.
Not only was our timing perfect, but because of the completely clear weather we had all weekend, Mt. Fuji was very visible right next to the sun.
The clear weather also gave a perfect view of that beautiful Tokyo skyline.
There were a lot of people crowded around the west windows of the observation deck, but it wasn't as crowded as you'd think. I found a spot near a window and kept snapping photos of the sun slowly moving closer and closer to the horizon, until it finally went below the mountains left of Fuji.
I had fun staring at the sun. It didn't sustain the interest of my students and the other teacher, though, as they were waiting for me on a couch nearby. They were hungry as their school business of the day was just as long as mine. Also, they were in a bit of hurry since they had tickets for an event at 7pm. We had dinner as fast as we could, then I saw them off in a taxi.
Contemplating what to do with the rest of my evening, I decided to return to the observation deck and take some night photos.
The last time I visited the Metro Building was in summer with some college friends in Japan on vacation. One night, we went to the Metro Building to watch the nightly projected illumination event, which happens 3 times a day after nightfall. Visualizations were projected on the east side of the Metro building, which pulsed and moved to music.
The visualizations matched the architecture of the building, and sometimes it felt like the building was transformed into a circuit board, or blocks which broke away in a fantasy landscape.
Now, I was on the reverse side of the projection, looking down at the crowd and the projectors shooting up at me.
Looks like the projection is done using 28 projectors on the roof of the assembly building, opposite of the 45-story main building.
Overall, viewing the sunset from an observation point in Tokyo was one of the things on my bucket list (which I had forgotten), so I was glad to end the weekend and my business trip with such a beautiful site. Tomorrow, it's back to the blizzard up in the mountains.
