Exploring Tokyo

We woke up this morning for our last full day in Tokyo & it was pouring rain. With a full day planned and MariCar tonight (one of the main things I wanted to do here!) I was a bit worried we wouldn’t be able to make it all work.

I desperately need some clothes washed, just enough to get me through tomorrow & we will deal with the rest when we get to Kyoto. We’re hoping it’ll be cheaper there as the laundry service in this hotel (along with everything else) is very expensive! Our laundry was picked up at 830 this morning & will be returned to our room later this afternoon, phew!

We left the hotel, purchased some little umbrellas from one of the shops downstairs & made our way to Todokorri Valley, a nice little temple surrounded by a gulley of water. The trip out to Todokorri valley took about an hour, we are headed a bit out of town and I’m really looking forward to seeing what life is like outside of the buzzing city - rain and all!

Todokorri Valley itself wasn’t overly impressive, the colours & the temple were lovely but it was a bit of a let down. Next stop, Akihabara - the electronic district in Japan so of course Pete was in heaven here. We had a bit of a look around the town and then made our way to the Arcade, one of the biggest here. The arcade itself is across 5 floors & has sections for arcade games (dance step, claws & photo booths) and other floors for electronic games, like your old style Pac-Man & space games. The dance floor one was impressive, this Japanese boy would’ve been about 17 and just absolutely killed it on the dance game. His feet were jumping and moving around so quick to keep it beat, it was epic to watch!

Tokyo Skytree was our next stop, it’s kind of like Sydney’s Centre Point tower & I’ve really been looking forward to seeing Tokyo from above. Unfortunately today, the fog is too bad for us to see anything up top - the ladies at the service counter said we could buy tickets but we wouldn’t be able to see anything through the fog & suggested to come back tomorrow if we could as the weather should be better. It was so honest of them, you wouldn’t get that in Australia - too much money to be lost...

On the way out, Pete devoured an ice cream waffle. It was absolutely massive, like a full size pizza with ice cream and fruit piled into it & wrapped up into a massive ice cream cone. Super healthy ha

We then made our way back to the Subway bound for Harijuku, another destination Pete & I have been keen to check out since arriving. Harijuku is famous for its teen pop culture, the young girls you see with the bright hair, neon nails & hello kitty ears all originate from here & it was such a cute little suburb. Bright lights, funky shops & just all round quirky as - I loved it.

We couldn’t walk past the cat cafe without going in, of course! I’m missing my little Snow creature heaps so any chance to cuddle some fur babies I’m definitely down for it. We had to take our boots off and were given these cute little slippers to wear into the cafe, then through the doors we went. The cats were so cute & have such a lovely little mansion to live in. There were quite a few cats, all happy to be stroked and patted as well as little toys you could use to play with them. They seem well looked after also & quite content. The staff had a few of the cats aside cleaning out there ears and brushing them, it was good to see them being looked after. Before leaving Harijuku I popped into the beauty shop to buy myself some fluro coloured nail polish then we made out way to Tokyo Bay for our MariCar booking.

The rain seems to have eased off this afternoon although it is predicted more rain tonight. Pete wasn’t keen on Maricar in the rain & neither was I, quite frankly it’ll be absolutely freezing but this is something I really REALLY wanted to do & given it is our last night in Tokyo we can’t reschedule. Our booking is at 6pm so hopefully, all will hold off until we at least get on the road cos then there’s no turning back! Ha

We arrived at Maricar, handed over our International licenses, hired a go pro & SD card to record the whole 3 hour tour, yay & then made our way upstairs to select our costumes. I was worried I’d struggle to choose which character to dress up as but as soon as we got upstairs the outfits just spoke to us in a perfect recollection of our childhoods for all 3 of us - Minnie Mouse for mum, Pikachu for Pete & Piglet from Winnie the Pooh for me.

Nintendo filed a lawsuit against MariCar a few months back about the company being a replica of the game Mario Kart in which they won. This meant all Mario Kart costumes had to be removed & their name was changed to Street Kart. I was okay with this though, it made it much easier to choose an outfit as I was stuck between wanting a character I liked & thinking it would be wrong to do Mari Kart dressed as a non Mario Kart character, problem solved ha

The best news of all is that our little group of 3 are the only ones doing this tonight. Due to the wet weather today, others that were meant to be riding tonight cancelled so it’s private tour around the city in Go Karts for us, yay!!

Street Kart was honestly the best thing I have ever done! Pete & Mum were a bit nervous and slightly skeptical about the whole thing but it honestly didn’t take long with us out on the roads for us to be comfortable & all 3 of us honestly had the best time. The rain held off and the weather wasn’t that bad either, it was way less cold than I expected which is always a bonus.

Our tour guide was great, he led the way & gave us a few different hand signals to communicate with us throughout the drive. When to drive next to each other, when to be in single file & when to speed up & slow down. He also took so many photos of us on the road & then at the end of the night just airdropped them to us, amazing!

I can’t even begin to explain how crazy it is sitting in the middle lanes of main roads in Tokyo with buses, taxis, trucks and cars driving either side of you. It’s absolutely crazy, it’s so Japan & I am just having the best time doing this. I would 100% recommend Street Kart to anyone, it is well worth the experience.

Still buzzing from what we just did we were also extremely hungry. On the way back to our hotel, we saw a 24 hour Chinese restaurant that we had dinner at. When we went in, we realised there was a queue for tables (crazy given it is 10pm) so we sat in line. Another Japanese party of 3 came in behind us and wrote their name down on a sheet of paper in front of us, it was of course all written in Japanese but I’m assuming this is the queue for a table, gah. I got up, wrote our names down then sat back in line knowing we were going to have to wait that bit longer for a table. Surprisingly, they moved through the list quite quickly & the lovely group in front, when called offered their space up to us as they realised what had happened (Silly Internationals not understanding) but it amazed me how polite they were with giving up there spot, you wouldn’t get that at home (I too would have been very much oh well, bad luck!) it’s a bit of an eye opener to how selfish we can be, the Japanese seem so lovely and so thoughtful, even on the trains when we hop on as a group of 3 & the train is relatively full they will give up their seats & move to another space so we can all sit together, amazing.

The Chinese food was delicious, we ordered a whole load of stuff and within 10 minutes was at our table ready. The food here is so quick, something I can definitely get used too lol

One of the best parts about tonight (Aside from MariCar) was Pete finding out he passed his Uni degree. He has worked so hard the past 3 years to complete this & has maintained a level of commitment I admire to stick it out (& pass with high marks) as well as having a full time job. Pete sat his last exam a few days before we left Aus & it’s been a bit of an anxious wait for him to get his results, I knew he’d pass of course I did but it’s great to see how relieved he was when the big
“congratulations you passed” hit his Uni account. I’m very proud of him!