Oshiage
At the foot of the tower, the old lanes of Kyojima remain.
Oshiage, in Sumida Ward, sits at the foot of the 634-metre Tokyo Skytree. The station at the foot of the tower (today's Tokyo Skytree Station) was called Narihirabashi until 2012, and the tower stands on the site of a private railway's freight yard and a ready-mix concrete plant. Ten minutes' walk east, Kyojima still has old wooden houses and narrow lanes.
How long it takes to reach the main destinations with this station as your base.
| Destination | Approx. time | Transfers | Main lines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haneda Airport (train) | about 40 min | none | Toei Asakusa Line / Keikyu Line (through service) |
| Haneda Airport (bus) | about 50–70 min | none | Skytree Shuttle bus (from Tokyo Skytree Town)Timetable & fares (official, Japanese)The bus stop is at Tokyo Skytree Town (from Oshiage Station, Exit B3)DetailsThe bus stop is at Tokyo Skytree Town (from Oshiage Station, Exit B3) |
| Narita Airport (train) | about 70 min | none | Keisei Access Express (via the Narita Sky Access Line) |
| Narita Airport (bus) | about 70–80 min | none | Skytree Shuttle bus (from Tokyo Skytree Town)Timetable & fares (official, Japanese)The bus stop is at Tokyo Skytree Town (from Oshiage Station, Exit B3)Reservations required. Four buses a dayDetailsThe bus stop is at Tokyo Skytree Town (from Oshiage Station, Exit B3)Reservations required. Four buses a day |
| Tokyo Station | about 10 min on board | 1 (Kinshicho) | Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line → JR Sobu Line (Rapid) |
| Asakusa | about 5 min | none | Toei Asakusa Line |
| Shibuya | about 30 min | none | Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line |
| Shinjuku | about 30 min on board | 1 (Kinshicho) | Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line → JR Chuo-Sobu Line (Local) |
| Tokyo Disney Resort (bus) | about 45–55 min | none | Skytree Shuttle bus (from Tokyo Skytree Town)Timetable & fares (official, Japanese)The bus stop is at Tokyo Skytree Town (from Oshiage Station, Exit B3)About 45 min to Tokyo DisneySea, 55 min to Tokyo DisneylandDetailsThe bus stop is at Tokyo Skytree Town (from Oshiage Station, Exit B3)About 45 min to Tokyo DisneySea, 55 min to Tokyo Disneyland |
| Nikko | about 105 min on board | 1 (Tokyo Skytree Station) | Tobu limited express (Spacia X / Revaty Kegon)Limited expresses do not stop at Oshiage, so walk to Tokyo Skytree Station to board. A limited express ticket is requiredDetailsLimited expresses do not stop at Oshiage, so walk to Tokyo Skytree Station to board. A limited express ticket is required |
Rough times from official timetables, checked with one weekday daytime service (24 September 2026). "On board" is riding time only and does not include changing trains. Times vary by time and day.
At 634 m, Tokyo Skytree is the tallest tower in the world and the tallest structure in Japan. The Tembo Deck at 350 m and the Tembo Galleria at 450 m offer sweeping panoramas of the Kanto plain, and on clear winter days Mount Fuji is visible on the horizon.
Book tickets online in advance to skip the queues. Sunrise and dusk slots sell out fastest, so reserve at least a week ahead.
Photographed January 2024
The 300-plus-shop commercial complex at the base of Skytree houses regional food halls, pop-culture merchandise, and the Sumida Aquarium. The basement food floor is especially popular for its Tokyo-only sweets and bento.
The west-side 4th-floor open terrace gives you a free, up-close look at the Skytree base and is a great spot for photos without fighting crowds.
Photographed September 2026
A park along both banks of the Sumida. The cherries come out in spring, and it is known as the place where the Skytree, the blossom and the water go into a single frame.
During cherry-blossom season, the north bank (Taito-side) is less crowded than the Sumida-side. Arrive before 8 am for a quiet stroll and the best light for photos.
Photographed September 2026
Kyojima, about ten minutes' walk east of the Skytree, still has old wooden houses and narrow lanes. The streets are narrow, and a good many of them are dead ends. There are tofu makers, a bathhouse, and small shrines tucked into corners of the lanes.
Walk along Kyojima 3-chome on a weekday morning when locals do their shopping. There are no tourist signs here — just bring a sense of curiosity.
This quiet street running through Hikifune is lined with cherry trees and is almost entirely unknown to tourists. During blossom season it becomes a tunnel of pink, enjoyed almost exclusively by local residents and their dogs.
The street is at its best in the evening when warm street-lamp light catches the blossoms. Come mid-week to avoid even the small local crowds.
A garden laid out in 1804 by Sahara Kikuu, an Edo merchant, with help from the writers and painters he kept company with; few private gardens of the Edo period survive. Admission is 150 yen, among the cheapest of the metropolitan gardens.
The east side of Tokyo Solamachi's first floor is called Solamachi Shotengai — a corridor built to look like an old downtown shopping street. Around thirty small shops sell food, household goods and coffee.
The Skytree entrance is on the fourth floor, so anyone who comes only for the observation deck never walks through here. Come back down to the ground floor before you leave.
Photographed September 2026
A long, narrow shopping complex built into the space under the Tobu Skytree Line viaduct, running from Asakusa to Tokyo Skytree Station. It opened in June 2020 and is split into a West and an East zone, wedged between the Kita-jukken River and Sumida Park.
The East zone holds Ensen Shokudo, a food hall gathering restaurants from along the Tobu railway — ramen from Kasukabe, flat himokawa udon from Kiryu, a very thick pork steak from Nikko. Open 11:00 to 22:00.
Photographed September 2026
Three stops from Oshiage, in Ryogoku, there are a number of chanko restaurants run by former wrestlers. It is a pot of vegetables and tofu in chicken or pork stock — what the stables have eaten day to day.
Chanko-nabe Yoshiba occupies the building of a former sumo stable, unaltered. Dinner needs a reservation.
Photographed July 2026
A Hakata-style offal hotpot restaurant on the 31st floor of Tokyo Solamachi. The broth comes in several versions — white (miso), red (soy sauce), gold (kombu dashi), silver (salt and black pepper).
The 31st floor is Solamachi Dining Skytree View, a restaurant floor where the window seats look out over the city.
Photographed September 2026
Its full name is TOKYO Sumidagawa Brewing. It is a brewery and restaurant on the second floor of the Annex building in the Asahi Beer complex at Azumabashi, beside the block that carries Philippe Starck's golden object. Just under twenty minutes' walk along the river from Solamachi. The beers are named after the Sumida, and the river is in view from the seats.
The tasting flight of four small pours is the best way to sample the range. The weizen-style 『Sumida White』 is the most approachable for first-timers.
Opened in March 2026 on the 30th floor of Solamachi, this is the highest Starbucks in Japan at around 150 metres above ground. It seats 80. On a clear day the Skytree stands directly in front, with central Tokyo and the Kanto plain beyond, and Mount Fuji on the horizon.
You get this height over Tokyo without buying an observation deck ticket. Open 10:00 to 23:00.
Photographed September 2026
Until 17 March 2012 the station at the foot of the tower was called Narihira-bashi. The name comes from Ariwara no Narihira, a poet of the early Heian court, and from an episode in the Tales of Ise in which he travels east, away from the capital, and stops at the Sumida. He sees a bird the boatman calls a miyako-dori, a capital-bird, and he puts a question to it: if you carry that name, then tell me — is the person I think of alive or not.
The verb in that poem is kototou, to ask. It stayed in the ground here. A dumpling shop by the river took the name Kototoi, and from the shop it passed to the bridge and then to the avenue, so that Kototoi-bashi and Kototoi-dōri are, in the end, named after a question asked of a gull about eleven hundred years ago. The bird itself is still around: the miyako-dori is understood to be the black-headed gull, which is now the official bird of Tokyo.
The ground the tower stands on has a shorter memory. It was a rail freight yard — the busiest of any private-railway goods station in Tokyo — which closed in 2003, next to a plant that had been turning out ready-mixed concrete since 1949 and stopped in 2007. Two flat, working lots. When the tower went up on them it was given a height of 634 metres, chosen because the digits can be read mu-sa-shi, the old name of this province. So the new thing is named after the old land, and the poet's name came off the station sign in the same year it opened.
At sunset the tower lights up, and the lights go out at midnight. Its signature schemes include Iki, a pale blue drawn from the water of the Sumida River, and Miyabi, in Edo purple. The tower you looked up at by day can be told apart by its color at night.
That day's lighting time and color are listed on the lighting page of the official website.
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Effectively at the station exit, one minute on foot, and directly beneath the Skytree. Rooms are larger than the Richmond standard and the tower fills the window on the right side of the building.
Ask for a Skytree-facing room when booking; the difference is considerable.
Photographed September 2026
A 30-minute walk or 10-minute cycle from Oshiage (or two stops on the Toei Asakusa line), Nui. is one of Tokyo's most design-forward hostels, built inside a renovated warehouse in the artisan district of Kuramae. Private rooms and dormitory bunks are both available.
Marlate month into early April
Hikifune Sakura-dori
A street through housing north of the Skytree, with branches reaching in from both sides. It is not a sight, so there are no stalls and no barriers; the blossom comes over the front of houses with washing hung out.
Julthe last Saturday
Sumida River
They are launched nearer Asakusa but can be seen from the Oshiage side. On the day, movement in and out of the station is restricted and simply walking near Solamachi takes time. Expect the trains home to be slow.
Sepmid-month
Ushijima Shrine
Taken as the start of autumn in Sumida. Each neighbourhood association in Oshiage puts on its dedicatory dancing in the evening. In the years of the great festival, held once in five, a procession led by an ox-drawn palanquin covers the parish over a route of some thirty-five kilometres.
Dates shift from year to year. Check the shrine or organiser before you plan around one.
Oshiage (Skytree) is served by four lines: the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon line, the Toei Asakusa line, the Tobu Skytree line and the Keisei Oshiage line. The Hanzomon line runs from Shibuya (about 30 minutes) — note it does not reach Shinjuku, so from there change at Otemachi or Kudanshita. Tokyo Skytree Station on the Tobu line, about 5 minutes from Asakusa, is the other option. From Haneda, Keikyu trains run through onto the Toei Asakusa line without a change, roughly 45 minutes; from Narita, Keisei's Access Express connects via the same through service.
Late March to early April brings iconic cherry blossoms along the Sumida River, combining beautifully with Skytree views. Late November to early December offers clear, dry air and the best visibility from the observation decks, with frequent views of Mount Fuji. Summer evenings feature outdoor festivals along the river and the annual Sumidagawa Fireworks in late July.
The Skytree tower changes its LED illumination colour every night, cycling between three themes — 『Iki』 (indigo blue), 『Miyabi』 (purple), and special seasonal schemes. Check the official calendar before your visit and plan a riverside stroll at dusk to see the tower light up — the reflection on the Sumida River doubles the effect.
The characters read as pushing up. The origin is disputed: some accounts say the tide pushed silt up to make the land, others that floods pushed the earth up here. They agree at least that it was water, not people, doing the pushing.