Street Karting in Shibuya

We had the option of visiting Shibuya when we first returned to Tokyo with the G Adventures group, but instead explore Shinjuku. We knew that our Shibuya day would come, because we had a special plan on this day. Racing Street Karts!

We had organized it many months in advance and were super excited for this. It was early in the morning, we jumped onto the train, at this stage of course we are absolutely public transport experts, exit at Shibuya Train Station and then walked through the streets, passed the Hachikō Memorial Statue and onwards to our Street Karting location.

It cost us JPY14000 per person plus a JPY500 fee for insurance, however on the agreement that you write them a review on any popular review site, they drop the price to JPY12000. Having looked around at the different companies, this was easily the best price and the experience we had, I couldn't fault it.

We arrived nice and early and were presented with our first difficult decision. Would we wear funny costumes and which ones would we wear. We did and naturally John decided to go as Elmo from Sesame Street and I decided to dress as a horse, of course.

I brought along with me the DJI OSMO Action and borrowing one of their mounts for cheap, hung it around my neck and recorded the whole experience.

We had a guide at the front of us leading the pack, John and I in the next row and two other customers paired behind us. We only had a few ground rules;

• Keep close
• Stay in the lane
• Use the indicators
• Keep an eye on the lead, he will indicate if he wants us all in a single filed line or paired side by side in the lane

I suspect the last rule ensured that we had plenty of great photos taken, which of course were free of charge.

It was actually amazing and worth doing when visiting one of Japan's bigger cities.

As a side note, we saw another group pass us on their karts, that did not dress up, and they looked absolutely miserable.

After our incredible adventure we decided to walk back to Shibuya Scramble, famously known for the quantities of people always crossing the intersection. It was busy when we went, but nowhere near as busy as it gets even on ordinary days. We disappeared into the nearby shopping mall to see if we could get a better vantage point and maybe lunch.

Since Kobe, we'd been looking for an opportunity to treat ourselves to a good Japanese steak and some top class teppan-yaki plus especially as this holiday was covering two birthdays. Thankfully we did manage to satisfy the worlds best steak fantasy in Kyoto, but we still wanted a treat. A work colleague had recommended to me a series of restaurants called Teppanyaki 10, so when we came across a restaurant of the same name we thought we'd give it a go, and treat ourselves. Treat ourselves we did at JPY18,480 per person. Now you realise how cheap the Street Kart was!

We opted for the Fillet Steak set course, made up of crab salad, sea urchin, grilled lobster, grilled abalone, a crepe of some kind, fillet steak, rice, soup and dessert from the trolley travelling round the restaurant at high speeds.

At some stage I'll make a few videos of the whole trip that will of course include the street karting.

Correction: I incorrectly claimed John was dressed as Ernie. He was in fact dress as Elmo. Thank you Sinead for pointing out this critical error.