On a summer day, I found myself heading toward Tokyo Skytree.
It had already been three months since I moved to Tokyo. In the whirlwind of work and routine, I suddenly realized—I hadn’t yet visited a place that truly captured the spirit of modern Tokyo. A casual comment from a local colleague had lingered in my mind: “Funny how people who live here never actually go.”
I’m a business professional from the west coast of Canada, currently working at the Tokyo office of an international consulting firm. In a workplace where logic and efficiency are the pillars of every decision, I’d begun to feel like my own sense of intuition was slowly fading. Hoping to reconnect with something more instinctive, I boarded the Tobu Skytree Line toward Asakusa.
When I stepped out of Asakusa Station and onto the street, it rose before me—a colossal tower piercing the blue sky. Tokyo Skytree, soaring 634 meters high, looked like a pillar of light stretching toward the heavens. Despite its presence in the heart of the city, it radiated a curious stillness.
I took the glass elevator up to the observation deck, where an endless 360-degree panorama unfolded. The glitter of Tokyo Bay, distant mountain ridges, and a perfectly ordered city grid—all lay beneath me. At the center of it all, I stood still, feeling as if I had reached the beating heart of a living metropolis.
As I was taking photos near one of the windows, I suddenly caught the eye of a woman standing beside me. She looked to be around my age. Her short hair framed a blouse patterned with delicate geometric shapes, and she carried a canvas tote slung over one shoulder. There was something quietly resilient about her presence—unpretentious, yet steady.
“Is it your first time here?” she asked casually.
“Yeah, how about you?”
“My third. But it always looks different. Strange, isn’t it?”
That one line opened the door to conversation. Her name was Mika. She worked in advertising and had recently gone freelance. Letting go of security in search of freedom, she seemed both to be reaching for something and to have let something go.
“Do you like your job?” she asked.
I hesitated. What came to mind were endless meetings, PowerPoint decks, and a world filtered by efficiency—a world that had started to feel distant.
“I think I used to. But lately, I feel like I’ve lost touch with… how things feel.”
“Then maybe you just need to look at the world a bit more,” she smiled. “Like this view.”
She pointed toward the Sumida River. Along its banks, traditional wooden inns and sleek modern towers stood in quiet harmony. Past and future, old and new, coexisted in a way that gave Tokyo its unique depth.
We descended to the base of the tower and wandered into the complex below—Tokyo Solamachi, a vertical town of its own. There were artisan shops, art galleries, and countless restaurants, all tucked into its labyrinth of glass and wood.
We chose a restaurant known for modern Japanese cuisine. The exterior was soft with wooden lattice and washi-paper lamps, and inside, warm lighting and ambient music offered a gentle welcome. I ordered sea bream chazuke—delicate slices of sashimi laid over rice, with roasted tea poured gently over the top. The subtle umami of the fish mingled with the nutty aroma of the tea, creating a flavor that quietly revived me.
Later, Mika and I said goodbye, and I began walking alone toward Asakusa. Along the way, I passed through Denpoin Street, an old-fashioned shopping district. The evening sky turned a soft red, and wind chimes tinkled faintly in the breeze. At Senso-ji Temple, I watched people offer prayers at the main hall, and a hush settled in my heart.
My last stop was Sumida Park, a riverside haven of green where Tokyo Skytree loomed in the background. Locals jogged along the path, a man read quietly on a bench, and a couple in summer yukata posed for a photo. This wasn’t the Tokyo of postcards—it was the Tokyo people lived in.
As twilight deepened, I ducked into a small traditional sweets shop and ordered kuzukiri—translucent arrowroot noodles chilled on ice, with dark syrup drizzled over the top. In its cool, elegant simplicity, I tasted a fleeting piece of Tokyo’s summer.
On the way back to my hotel, a thought quietly surfaced:
Perhaps travel isn’t about moving from one place to another—it’s about shifting your perspective.
The view from the Skytree, the flavor of tea-soaked rice, the quiet talk with Mika—all of it had etched a new landscape into my heart.
Until now, I’d traveled to see as much as possible. But this time, I traveled to feel. I let the city enter me—not through words, but through sensation, through stillness.
And I know I’ll return to the sky again.
Because each time I look, the view will be just a little different.
Something New Travel
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