A rainy day, so we hit the Edo-Tokyo Museum. It was huge, with all sorts of interactive, moving and miniature displays. We ended up spending way longer than anticipated there! Edo is what Tokyo was called before it was the capital. The museum is right next to the sumo stadium, and when we were leaving we saw a giant guy in traditional robe, wooden shoes and a top knot getting on the metro. Sumos have to constantly wear the traditional garb and live a traditional lifestyle (plus metro?) until they retire.
Next we hit the Sky Tree but it was too foggy to see the top, so we didn’t feel the need to pay to go up and check out the view. We did stumble across an all you can eat dessert buffet in the mall below the sky tree, but I seemed to be the only one interested! :)
We realized we were near an owl cafe, so of course that’s where we headed next. We had to take an elevator to the 5th floor, and the doors opened into a jungle. I was very apprehensive about the whole thing (birds are scary, y’all!) but everybody else seemed excited. It was a small/medium sized room – think master bedroom ish – but filled with fake plants, a couple of aquariums, a tiny tiny monkey by the cash register and birds everywhere. Some so still that you’d think they were fake until they looked right at you. Some were leashed, some were not. Some were tiny, some were HUGE. There was a pop Christmas song playing on loop, and the Disney movie Anastasia, also playing on loop on a big screen. We sat down and a girl just brought a bird up to us, put an oven mitt on our hands and plopped a bird on our hands! Then after a while she came and took the bird away and gave it to another person. I was the last one to accept an owl, and while I was holding it the owl next to me tried to bite me! There was a giant owl in the corner, and I asked if it was really old – turns out only about 4 months. That sucker was huge and not leashed – apparently allowed to fly around whenever. Luckily he didn’t try while we were there.
Having held one bird, I was feeling brave. “Bring me the biggest bird you’ve got!” I exclaimed. My pals were shocked, but the girl brought over Benjamin. He was pretty heavy, and I was pretty uneasy, but I did it! Then Benny was passed off to John – and the girl walked away for like ten minutes. John’s arm was getting tired, and ol Benny had an accident on John’s pants, and the lady still wouldn’t come take the bird. It was pretty funny (mostly because it wasn’t me).
Meredith R. Allen 
