Shibuya Crossing Go-Kart Ride with Photo Stops in Tokyo

If you only want the one shot — you, in costume, in a kart, in the middle of Shibuya Crossing — this is the tour that gets you there and does not pad the rest.

One hour, a tight loop, and the crossing itself as the centrepiece. Shibuya's scramble handles up to 3,000 people on a single light change and something close to half a million a day, and going through it at road level with pedestrians flooding past on all sides is genuinely unlike anything else in the city. Hachiko, the Akita who waited at the station and has stood in bronze here since 1934, is a few metres from where the group passes.

The rest of the loop runs up through Harajuku and along Omotesando, the wide zelkova-lined avenue that Tokyoites call their Champs-Elysees and that was laid out as the approach to Meiji Shrine. It is the easiest riding of the hour and gives the guide clean space to shoot the group in motion, while Harajuku's tighter streets around Takeshita-dori supply the crowds.

Costume, helmet and photos are included. The one thing that is not, and cannot be fixed once you land, is the licence: Japan requires a Geneva-Convention International Driving Permit, carried physically with your home licence and passport. Sort it before you fly — scans and phone photographs are refused at the counter.

Minimum age is 18, the karts are single-seat so everyone drives their own, and light rain is fine with ponchos supplied. You are open to the weather throughout, so dress for the temperature rather than the photographs.