Tokyo Skytree (SNA)

SNA (Tokyo) — Tokyo Skytree, the world’s largest broadcasting tower, is reaching two important milestones in the month of May 2013. It has recently recorded its 50 millionth visitor and, on the 22nd, it celebrates its first anniversary.

Skytree cost more than US$650 million to build and stands some 634 meters (2,080 feet) in height. To put that figure into perspective, it is almost twice as tall as New York’s Empire State Building as well as its cross-town rival, Tokyo Tower.

The SNA visited Solamachi today, the shopping arcade at the base of Skytree, to ask people why they had come.

One young lady told us she had made the trip from Funabashi in the knowledge that Skytree was reaching its first anniversary. She celebrated the fact that no major accidents had occurred in its first year of operations.

A group of visitors from Indonesia said that Skytree was already very famous in Jakarta and that they wanted to see it for themselves as part of their week-long business trip to Japan.

Marking the one-year anniversary, Skytree will be shifting the colors that light it up in the evening hours. The shifting colors have already begun. This special anniversary event will wrap up on June 4th.

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