Day 6 highlight: Mario-kart!

After taking it easy on transit-to-Tokyo day, we decided to take it easy on breakfast this morning. We agreed on a time to meet; but decided to spend the morning free-and-easy. I knew I needed coffee, so after the recce from the day before, I knew where to go. I headed straight for it, while the children settled their breakfast with breads and their choice of food from the supermarket run the evening before. Right on time, we met at the lobby and off we went!


We had an exciting plan for this morning; i.e. to drive around the streets of Tokyo. The sister was very hyped about this and it was pretty much the only big thing we had planned (besides her own omakase dinner). We took the trains and found our way pretty fine. It was a drizzly morning which was a bit troublesome, but like a good auntie-in-training, out came my umbrella and the kids' windbreakers with hoodie!

Spot the boy with hood, the man who didn't care and... the mother.

It was a short stroll to the shop and along the way, we first passed some huge shopping buildings, then little low shop houses.. and it was a cutest thing to see babies-in-carts.

Babies-not-for-sale!

Finally, after walking (I'm sure it wasn't veryyy far but it did feel a bit.... cos so lazy) and turning a corner and being so thankful we have GPS, we found the shop! It was quite a nothing-much-to-look-at-kinda-door. The only hint of it being a kart-shop was that there were some parked at the front, and we heard a batch of 2 karts zooming off just as we were approaching it. Other than that, it looked... normal.

We entered and it just looked like a shop with a ton of clothes hanging around. That, was the cherry on top of the cake - costumes! While waiting for the admin to be done (payment, checking of licence...) we got started to pick our costumes.

Little Jedi. OK, not really. Buzz Lightyear!
(It was totally his first choice because at Disney, he picked a toy and it was a
Buzz Lightyear gun! He's holding it in the pic)

Yee-haw! Says the cowgirl (friend in Toy Story)

Then the boy changed his mind and settled on this

SUPERMAN!

When the sister was sharing this game with us, she cheekily suggested that the husband be a cake (as seen on social media). He gamely said 'ok' and that was that. Then some weeks later, we saw that F1 driver Jensen Button had visited and he put on a princess dress; so we said "if it's good enough for Jensen..." So truly, while the sister and I were totally clueless what we wanted to dress as; the boys were ready! Unfortunately, the cake suit was not available so the husband picked another outfit that looked just as pretty. It tickled so bad as the men were such good sports - applause -

The princess and her pet dino

Double-headed chipmunk w Superboy-mushroom

Our adorable family of weirdos

Our little family mish-mash of animals, weeds, humans and superheros

The adults who converted our licence to an international licence were able to drive the karts. The grandparents and children followed behind us in a tuk-tuk.

Happy mushroom

After a short briefing of how to operate our karts, we were ready to set off! We had to walk a short way to our vehicles...

No award for being lady/princess-like!

And this is how you curtsey beside your kart

Team tuk-tuk

Look at his open legs - guffaw -

A close-up, if you wish

Though there was a briefing, it still felt rather scary driving on the roads. The sound of the karts was loud, the fumes were pretty awful (it was a major downside!); we looked ridiculous and in retrospect, it was pretty dangerous as we were really driving on the roads in Tokyo, with no helmets, no part of a car to shield us, no seat belts.... just our international driving licence - inserts stunned face -


Thankfully, it was an accident-free drive. Ok, so I ran a red light (I thought we could go!); the sister skidded on the wet roads (do not jam brake!) and also thought she was playing bumper cars (as she kissed the back of her busband's kart).... everyone remained unscathed. Phew! We ended up driving for a total of 3 hours! There was a break in between, which added to the fun and hilarity of our drive.

Parked.

Mr Minnie Princess had to pee

Dino takes drink-shopping seriously

Batman-Mario having a laugh

Little munchkins fuelling up

We were such a sight! People on the streets snapped pictures of us, we waved as we swung by, trying to look valiant in our silly costumes; someone even wound down his window to have a tiny chat with the dino - oh boy.

Look Ma, I'm driving on the roads in a chipmunk suit!

All good things must come to an end, so at the end of the drive, we parked and heaved a huge relief that we made it. It took me a while to get into driving and managed to feel more secure with the steering and the pedal. What. An. Experience!

One for the road. The stepsisters

I need to say that we were very fortunate the weather was cool. It was drizzly and wet (added to the excitement) but what made it all amazing was how cool the weather was. Our costumes were made totally fun because the temperature was kind. If it had been a regular summer's day in Tokyo, we would have been so uncomfortable in our costumers! We were very lucky. It was also a good decision we made to pick the 11am slot. By the time we returned to the shop, it was packed with tourists and another round of drivers; but it just felt so uncomfortable and squeezy; whereas in the morning, it was just mostly us and we had the luxury of space and no-stress selection of costumes; so hoorah!


After undressing ourselves, we returned their stuff, gathered out stuff and left. We re-traced our way back towards the main station. The husband had a  need to eat yakitori so off we went in search of a place... but after attempting to find the place and then finding it; the experience was not perfect as the restaurant only served yakitori in the evening, not daytime!


Thus, while we got to feed ourselves, we did not get to eat what we endeavoured to. Regardless, everyone was pretty tired after the morning's shenanigans and we decided to take it easy. The sister and her busband and a private dinner that evening, so they headed off. Together with my parents, we headed to the city and browsed about. In the end, we did not buy much - instead, we stopped at a café for a snack (we had ice-cream, strawberry shortcake and an apple pie) and pretty much to rest our feet; before window shopping again.


It was just pre-dinner that we had an incident. It was just after we had bought some clothes for the kids that the boy said he had to poop. The poop turned out to be bad diarrhea and we spent some time waiting for him to be done and cleaned up. Euw.

Clothes change and a photo opp with the policeman

Thankfully, he seemed ok and we managed to adjourn to dinner nearby. The husband searched for yakitori (yup, we do not give up) and located a whole street of bbq stalls. We headed into a store and it was a very cosy affair of many people squeezing into a tiny table in a tiny room.

Dinner

The toilets at these streets were gross. It was kinda open concept and squat and I (do not) thank my daughter for needing to pee at this moment (why couldn't we have gone when we were in the shopping malls?!) to have introduced us to this fact. It was also here that we uncovered (with a shock) that there was a cover charge' to restaurants; that they imposed a fee for each person that took up a seat within. Boo.

Yakitori Street (I made this up)

After dinner, we strolled about the streets and found our way back to the train station to commute back to the hotel.

No more tummyache hooray!

The sister and busband were still at dinner by the time we got back, but they did join us in our room for a bit. That night, we had their atas chicken rice with nuts amidst our beers and night-time snacks.


The end.


Read more here: Day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5.