Shinjuku, Tokyo - Shinjuku is the skyscraper district of Tokyo and it is one of two downtown areas. The other downtown being Tokyo city center itself. Surprisingly, all the skyscrapers here in Shinjuku are relatively conservatively designed. There were no really out of this world skyscrapers to be seen here.

The three photos of the left are of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) buildings. These are the tallest buildings in Tokyo and unlike other world-class cities, its observation deck is free to the public which is great.

Similarly, unlike other cities, there were no queues to go up to the observation deck. I had to queue for hours to visit the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York. So, the absence of queues here was a welcomed relief.

There is a very nice larga plaza at the base of the TMG buildings. This plaza is ringed by a series of statues (photo 4). On the day that we visited, there was a large troupe of boy and girl scouts gathered for a jamboree of sorts (photo 5).

Odaiba, Tokyo - Odaiba is a new area built on newly reclaimed land from Tokyo Bay. I am never ceased to be amazed by how many shopping and entertainment districts Tokyo, or for that matter, any one Japanese city has ! Odaiba boasts a number of large shopping and entertainment centers such as Aqua City, Decks, Joypolis, Palette Town, Venus Fort and Megaweb.

Coming here for the shopping and high-tech entertainment is one thing, but another is just to check out the funky buildings that this district has. It would appear to me that the architects of the Odaiba much has been given carte blanche to come up with their wackiest creations. The two buildings that really stand out are the Fuji TV Building (photo 4) and the Telecoms Center (photo 3).

The best way to view Odaiba is actually from the monorail which we caught from Shimbashi. Just as you get off the monorail station, there is a viewing platform to see a rather curious collection of Tokyo landmarks. This collection comprises the Tokyo Tower (inspired by the Eiffel Tower), the Rainbow Bridge (which reminds me of the Golden Gate Bridge) and a replica of the Statue of Liberty !

Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo - The Tokyo International Forum is a convention and arts center designed by the New York architect, Rafael Vinoly. It is located right in the heart of the Tokyo city center. It is a very distinctive glass enclosed building that's shaped like a ship's hull (photo 1).

Umeda Sky Building, Osaka - The Umeda Sky Building is located in the Shin-Umeda City district of Osaka. In my opinion, Osaka has a much more interested collection of modern buildings than Tokyo. The Umeda Sky Building is clearly the premier skyscraper that highlights the Osaka skyline.

It's interesting that given the high cost of real estate that developers are willing to dedicate a significant chunk of the available "air" real estate to aesthetic features rather than building it out as usable space.

This building has a "sky observatory" that is reached by taking an observation lift from one of the two towers to the top floor and then changing to a set of escalators that connect the two buildings. These escalators are visible in the first two photos as the two diagonal lines that cross the circle at the top of the building.

Unfortunately, we encountered another day with rather terrible weather and visibility from the observatory was near zero ! From what we could see, it is certainly worthwhile to check out the view on a clear day.