By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
Tsutenkaku Tower, our next visit, was another major tourist attraction of Osaka. Situated in Tennoji, this tower scales a height of 108 meters, a veritable dwarf side by side the 300 meters height of Abeno Harukas, that stands just some distance nearby.
The tourist fascination of this tower lies in its 94.5 meter-high viewing platform where, aside from its circular viewing deck, a strong metal plank of about 6 meters long and about 2 meters wide is projected from this viewing deck, like a bastion or rampart projecting from a defensive wall of a medieval castle. Here people line up to enter and cautiously walk on
this metal plank partially covered by wires, one at a time to have their pictures taken at the edge of the plank while executing their individual funny antics or signature acts.
But the stimulant of the protruding plank is not like the “oohs”-“aahs”-roused excitements of Abeno Harukas but one’s exposure to the open space and the scary height of the plank as one looks down. This tower enticement therefore is its propensity to intensely play on one’s fear for heights as it exposes him to the open air high above the ground with only the plank and its wires hedge as his scary protection against falling down.
Abeno Harukas and Tsutenkaku Tower are both heights spectacular, but here lies their difference, Harukas excites whereas Tsutenkaku scares, yet — ironically — the dwarf one!
