Karting in Tokyo

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Tue 2008/03/11 07:21 JST in Japan
So up until now we talked about places that you can shop at like Tokyo Midtown, Shin Marunouchi Building and Akihabara, but what if you are more of the sporty type?
How does karting sound? Not sure what the correct term is as I'm a newbie in this area - "Go Karting", "Kart Racing", "Go Kart Racing", "Farting" - me is not sure.
Spent Saturday morning in Kitasenju at CityKart with comrades from Max Factory, Good Smile, Hobby Stock, Nitro Plus and others in the figure and game industry. These folks sure know how to have fun.
The boss of Max Factory Max Watanabe brought along a few Figma's to play with.
The Lelouch and Haruhi Figma's figures are not out yet and I spent a lot of time playing around with them - especially Haruhi.
The Figma's are samples and the final versions will have a few more tweaks before release.
The Good Smile/Max Factory bunch usually do this once a month and are pretty good at Karting. Was my first time so I didn't want to wear the trooper helmet in case of an accident which I cant afford to have right now ^^;
Me asks Max to wear instead.
Max and one of the sculptors at Max Factory.
Char's Zak helmet.
Max gets ready to roll. See him rolling in the vid below.
There were about 20 of us and we all had about three rounds at the track - 5 laps each turn.
And while its not our turn, we talk business, pleasure and play with the Figma's. Lelouch gets the SOS Dan treatment.
Side view of the Char Zak helmet.
Scores are kept on the laptop - very dark screen ^^;
While I wait for this Haruhi to come out, I've stuck my PS2 Figma Haruhi head on Yuki's body.
These are great items to have during meetings - you know the meetings that you don't need to be in but are required to be in?
The track is located outside some housing - must be a pain to live there with the noise of the karts.
Hector joins in on the fun.
Twas my first time and was a load of fun - got a bit nervous when my kart went spinning a few times ^^;
At the end of the karting tounament, there is time left over for two more sessions - we all do the paper scissors stone thingy to see who gets to race.
Paper Scissors Stone is known in Japanese as "Junken" so if you want to junken with you friends you would say "Junken Shi-yoh" - "Shi-yoh" meaning "lets."
The track is right next to Sumida River so you can go for a nice stroll after if you want.
My lap times - best was 44 seconds - most of the others done 30 secs for each lap ^^;
The winner is announced.
There is a roller hockey court within the karting precinct too.
Looks like I will be going karting every month but I still really should make time to go swimming for my back pains. Do occasionally go to the park with wifey to play badminton though.
Brought my roller blades from the UK bit only seem to use them when shopping for groceries ^^;
Do you do any form of sport? What are the sporting facilities like in your region?
And after a morning of karting its some Udon and Curry Rice for lunch.