I have heard that Japan is apparently having a bit of a tourism problem, in the sense that they have too much tourism. Nice spots to visit in Tokyo have gone viral on social media, and I have noticed that some stores and attractions have insanely long lines while other comparable spots have no wait.

I have two philosophies that are applicable here. The first is that I value my time a lot, and if something involves waiting in line for a long time, I see that as a waste of time and will generally tend to be avoidant of it. The second is that I like supporting the “little guy” and helping smaller and less popular businesses sell their products and services, thus earning more cash runway to have an extended opportunity to prove themselves as a viable competitor in the open market. Long story short, I am very pro-capitalism and like seeing healthy capitalism at work.

I ended up applying this approach into practice a lot in Tokyo, because there are a lot of spots that are overbooked and overcongested, while something of seemingly equal quality and price just down the street is empty.

One of these examples was an “observation tower” experience. I don’t know if this is just my algorithm on social media and coincidental timing in-person, but Shibuya Sky seems to be the extremely popular, go-to observation tower nowadays. They do have a unique open-air deck at the top, but whenever I would be in that area, I would notice that they had signs up at the base of the tower notifying prospective sightseers that they had already sold out of tickets for the day.

Instead, I decided to go to 六本木ヒルズ展望台 東京シティビュー, which is the Tokyo City View at Roppongi Hills. This allowed me to get a comparable observation tower experience with no wait. I paid 2,400円 for my on-site admission ticket, which was a little bit over US$15. I could’ve saved 200円 if I had pre-purchased a ticket online, but this was a relatively spontaneous trip, and there was no line in front of the kiosk, so I just bought my ticket on-site.

I slowly walked around the entire building, taking photos of the stunning view from all the different angles I could. The density of Tokyo made this even more visually pleasing compared to other observation decks I’ve been to in the United States where the buildings were more spread out.

Complementary with the purchase of my ticket, I was also able to see the “30th Anniversary Exhibition: All of Evangelion.” Apparently Evangelion is a Japanese anime. I had never heard of it before, but everyone else was going absolutely bonkers over it, so I assumed this was important enough that I should take some photos. This exhibit had more people in it than the observation area, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people bought an observation tower ticket just so they could see this Evangelion exhibit.

(If you’re wondering, these Evangelion pictures are lower quality than the other ones in this blog post because this exhibit only allowed photography with smartphones and prohibited the use of standalone cameras.)

After being completely clueless but still having a good time looking at sketches and drawings of anime characters, I looped back out of the exhibition area and exited the paid section by going through the gift shop.

I didn’t buy anything, but I did browse their goods; it seemed to be fairly generic souvenirs, and I was surprised that they didn’t have anything that was more unique and customized to the Tokyo City View observation deck or the Roppongi Hills building.

A short distance away from the exit of the gift shop was a restaurant. It looked pretty nice and I wanted to dine in so I could thoroughly complete my Tokyo City View experience, but it was empty inside and there was no host at the front, so I figured that it was probably only open for dinner or something, and I walked onwards.

Next door (but still before descending from the observation floor), there was a café themed after Evangelion, presumably as part of the 30th anniversary celebration. I later found out that they are usually called “The Sun and The Moon,” but they appear to have rebranded temporarily to the All of Evangelion Café as part of the collaboration.

The food they served was also themed after Evangelion. They had a small collection of dishes and alcoholic beverages; I ordered some chicken curry rice and just opted for water.

The total came to ¥1,950, which was just under US$13—reasonable for United States pricing, but a little high for comparable food in Japan, though the markup was understandable due to it being a special partnership at a tourist hotspot and potentially needing to pay intellectual property licensing or royalty fees.

The chicken curry was very good compared to United States standards, but considering how amazing the food in Japan has been overall, this was mediocre when rated against other Japanese food.

After finishing my meal, I went back down to the lower floors, walked around a bit to check out some of the shops inside Roppongi Hills, then headed out for the next adventure of the day.

I feel like going to an observation deck is somewhat of a cliché thing to do in a city, but I think it was absolutely worth it in Tokyo. I’ve lived on upper floors of high-rise condominium buildings on the Las Vegas Strip, and I’ve gone to a lot of observation towers across the United States, so I’ve become somewhat desensitized to stunning views from high vantage points. With that being said, Tokyo was special in that it is such a dense city that you can just stand there staring out the window for a long time, and you will never run out of interesting things to look at below.