Tocho 都庁

Tocho 都庁　is short for Tokyo-To-Chosha　東京都庁舎, or the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

Located not too far from the Shinjuku Station, it offers spectacular views from the top (for FREE!) and a nice tourist office that has plenty of Tokyo maps and brochures.

At 799 feet, the Tocho used to be the tallest building in Tokyo, but now the Midtown Tower in Roppongi is taller. (thanks Wikipedia!)









LEFT: one of the three buildings of the Tocho. Pretty nifty, eh?


















I think this is one of the other buildings of it... there are three in total.

















View from below. 48 stories tall!!














The courtyard at the base of the Tocho. See the neat orange arc sculpture? It continues on the other side! There is also a pretty long skywalk on the 2nd or 3rd floor.










View from the observatory. Yay for being free! (Scoffing at Tokyo Tower, the Eiffel Tower lookalike that is around 800 yen!)













From the top, it seems that Tokyo goes on forever, you can't really see an end to buildings and civilization, which is a little scary!