March is the end of the school year in Japan, and before next year starts in the beginning of April, the children have a few weeks of holiday. Our son had found a pamphlet at kindergarten regarding events for kids where Tomica toy cars and other types of vehicles were the center of attention, and even before the school year ended he started to convince his parents that we should go to these events during spring break. So of course we did.
Tomica die-cast cars has been a, if not the, favorite of my son’s since he was barely able to say car. He has managed to acquire quite a collection of small toy cars and we play with them every day, so of course going to an event dedicated to these small cars was like visiting paradise. I have also acquired quite an affinity for these cars, so I confess I was also very excited to go. For my part I ended up buying a special event-model and marveling about how good the organizers are at getting parents to not just pay money to enter the event but then also pay money for almost all activities in the event. For my son, the highlights were to freely paint a completely white Suzuki Jimney jeep (which had to be purchased of course) and to do Tomica fishing – trying to hook a car using a little fishing rod (our son got to keep one of the cars he caught and of course it was more expensive than to buy the car in the shop that was set up just before the exit if the event).
After lunch we went to another floor of the BOSS E・ZO FUKUOKA building that is neighboring Fukuoka PayPay dome. The dome is the home arena for the Baseball team SoftBank Hawks, and in the E・ZO building there is a floor dedicated to Baseball. During spring break however, there was also a vehicle event for kids, so my son got to use a shovel car, drive a fork lift as well as play with a remote controlled fork lift that turned out to be the most fun part of the day. Together with baseball practice! Since the event was on the baseball floor, we made the most of our time there by throwing and hitting balls, as well as running as fast as possible trying to beat the image of an elephant or a penguin or a baseball player running on the wall next to us.
All in all it became a very fun day, with a lot of exercise and a few new cars to play with. And now we have a new play at home – fishing Tomica cars. We have made our own rods with hooks made from paper clips and we try to catch as many cars as we can. Much more fun than at the event if you ask me. And we can do it over and over again for free!
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