Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
Sunday, January 1, 2017

*ASH*

Dyl, Maj and I woke up at 830am and headed to Shinagawa to do their MariCar Tour. Upon arriving, we got to select a costume - I chose Toad, Dyl went as Mickey Mouse and Maj went as Dory. Although it wasn't too cold - we had to dress like we were going snowboarding as we would be driving around for 3hours.
After a quick run through of the karts, we hit the streets of Tokyo - it was so much fun! The karts had a maximum speed of 60km/h, at first - it felt very fast and Maj and I were slowing the team down. But after a while we got confident and zoomed through tunnels and hit 70km/h going downhill on a bridge. We felt like celebrities as every pedestrian crossing saw us getting waved at by children and adults and posing for a lot of photos taken by passers-by. Our tour leader had Mario Kart tunes playing and even had a banana he pretended to throw out on the road. We got to see a good list of Tokyo attractions including Rainbow Bridge (We got beautiful views of the water and the city), Tokyo Tower, Shibuya Crossing, Ronponggi, Odaiba . Our guide had planned stops for us where we would take a photo, have a quick break etc. It was such a cool way to get a feel for the city - especially for Maj and I who had only arrived the day before.
We finished up and headed back to the hostel to meet Louise and Blake and a hungover Callum who had all had a nice sleep in. After Callum emptying the contents of his stomach the night before (in the shower), Lou and Blake had a done a run to the local Family Mart to get some breakfast for him.
We then headed off to find somewhere for a spot of late lunch. I wanted Gyoza. Between the language barrier, the small restaurants, and it being around New Year holidays, it proved difficult to find a restaurant where we could have an English menu, they had room for us 6, and they were good. We managed to wing it this time and had some delicious Ramen, Gyoza and Fried Chicken.
We then headed to Shin-Juku to go back to the Observatory so Ash and Maj could see it. With a few stopovers at a Ski gear shop, Starbucks for Tea Lattes and Banana White Chocolates, we were too late for the observatory as it closed early before the public holiday tomorrow. It was still a nice walk through some lights, and around Shinjuku station. On our way back the boys needed to sort some of their tickets out for their day trip to the slopes, so us girls decided we would be fine to make our way home without the assistance of the boys which we've had all this time. Safe to say by the time we found the right platform to be on for the train, the boys had done what they needed to and met us there.
Headed home and put on a movie and went to sleep pretty early.