In Japan, it’s becoming the norm of having a garden terrace above a highrise or huge shopping complex.
In Ikebukuro, near the East Exit is the Seibu Roof Garden on top of the big Seibu shopping complex, right next door to Parco and Ikebukuro Station East Exit.
It’s kind of interesting because I’ve been to the Seibu complex numerous times, even tried to find the entrance to get to the rooftop garden but lacked the patience of finding it until one Sunday, I figured, why not look for it.
The Seibu Roof Garden is considered the largest roof garden and the “Water Lily Garden” is inspired by Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies”.
Around it are restaurants, eating areas and if anything, it’s a whole different vibe being up there.
In fact, from April to September, they held what is called “The Sky Beer Terrace” in the location, where one can get one seat for two hours for Y3000 up to eight people to lounge and eat many delicious food and of course, experience different types of alcohol.
I suppose what made it difficult to find was that I kept on entering Seibu from the East area and taking the elevator all the way up which kept leading me to office areas and the ninth floor not being accessible.
Instead, I had to another section that took me to the correct exit to get up there to the 9th Floor.
And what was interesting is that it was an exit area where a worker actually was standing in front of, near all these restaurants inside. So, from the general elevator entrance that leads outside to the East Exit, I wasn’t able to access it. It was until I got inside the Seibu area near the restaurants, where I found the actual way to get up there.
But overall, it was the nicest terrace area I have seen by far in Tokyo.
