Today we knew we were going to go to the owl cafe in the afternoon but didn't have any plans for the rest of the day. So after a bit of brainstorming over breakfast, we decided to spend the morning in Akihabara as Shannon wanted to check it out again when it hopefully wasn't as busy.

We had gotten up fairly late so by the time we got to Akihabara we only had a bit over an hour before we had to start heading to the owl cafe. We spent the time we had weaving in and out of the anime and gaming shops. Shannon bought a Final Fantasy vintage game and we played a few arcade games before we made our way back to the station.

We got to Tsukishima right on time at 1:00pm (you had to get to the cafe an hour before opening time to make your booking and it opened at 2:00pm). We spoke to the ladies standing outside and they said the earliest time available was 3:00pm so we paid our ¥2000 each and booked in.

We had two hours to kill and we had heard about an okonomiyaki restaurant lane that was nearby. It didn't take long to find and we choose a restaurant that had an English menu available. The place also sold monja which is like a thinner version of okonomiyaki but we weren't sure about it so we ordered a pork and egg okonomiyaki and a chorizo one. The lady cooked up the first one for us on the hot plate (each table had its own hot plate) because we had no idea how to do it. Once we demolished that one we made the next one ourselves and it turned out pretty well. The guys at the table next to us had a monja and it looked pretty damn good so we were a bit disappointed that we didn't try one of those.

We walked around the streets and tried to sap up some sun for the next half hour until it was time to go to the cafe.

Once we got to the cafe we lined up out the front and they called us in one by one and pointed us to our seats. The cafe is only small and fits about 10. We were given a pretty good seat in the middle of the room right amongst all the owls. There was a perch full of about 8 tiny owls behind us. Then right next to us a perch with two medium owls and then over to our right a bit further was a perch with about seven big owls. We selected our drinks and then the lady explained the rules about holding and patting the owls. Then we were allowed to move about the room.

We both held a small owl each at first which were super cute and well behaved. After 10mins or so we switched to bigger owls. Shannon held a hawk type one named Peter 2 and I held a smaller brown barn owl type one named Lucky. Shannon had Peter 2 on his shoulder and the owl cuddled right up close to him which was pretty cute. Lucky was pretty well behaved except for once when she tried to fly off but you just had to hold your arm up high and she settled back down.

We probably held the bigger ones for about 20mins until the ladies said it was time to put the owls down. We then got given a little souvenir that was included in the entry price. I got a yellow owl print handkerchief and Shannon got a soft owl toy key chain. We left the cafe in very high spirits and now both very much want a pet owl.

We went back to Ikebukuro after that and headed to Sunshine City where Shannon played a few games in J-World (some anime adventure park thing) and I waited in the cafe with cola. I tried one of the games with Shannon which I think was a little kid's One Piece game so there was that. In the end Shannon said the games were a bit too confusing when you don't speak Japanese but he tried them all out anyway.

For dinner we went to Yoyoiken for a set meal where I inadvertently ordered and ate fried oyster. Fortunately Shannon didn't tell me until after that it was oyster which I'm glad about because I doubt I would've eaten it had I known. It tasted okay, just very rich and greasy and I won't be ordering it again.

We went to bed after dinner to try and get a goodnight sleep for our early start tomorrow.