Throughout my life, there has only ever been one month where I haven’t had a pet (excluding my time in Japan). When I was 16, My sweet dog Hunter passed away, and my lovely cat Sam’s passing shortly followed. During that time, it felt really strange. I was so used to the company of other creatures in my life, and not having that comfort of a fluffy friend, made me feel really empty. Throughout my life we have had, 4 dogs, 8 cats, and a newt (and that’s not counting Bryson’s family pets of 4 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 horses). Ok, the newt only lived with us for a week before we brought it back to our cabin pond where we found it, but still!
During my month of creature comfort deprivation, I begged my mom to go to the SPCA with me. My go-to line was: “We don’t have to adopt any animals, just love them!” Well as you probably predicted, about 2 weeks after our first visit, we came home with two beautiful kitties, Morgan and Milo.
Now that I’m in Japan, and in a no-pets-allowed apartment, I really REALLY miss having a fluffy buddy around. I could try to lie and say that I don’t ask Bryson to go to the cat cafe with me once a week, or ask him if we can rescue every stray kitty we find, but let’s be honest here…I have a problem.
As much as we love our local cat cafe, while our friend Rachel was here for a visit, we wanted to see what other kind of cafe’s Osaka has to offer. We ended up coming across a reptile cafe about a 20 minute train ride from our place.
When we walked inside, the place was FULL of both caged and loose reptiles. The staff seated us at a table and promptly put an iguana smack in the middle of it. They continued to place other reptiles and insects in our hands, on our shoulders, and sometimes head.
With the animals all over the place, you’d think that they would have a seperate place for you to drink and eat right? Wrong! They literally serve your food and drinks on the same table with your new friend, Mr.Lizard.
But wait, it gets weirder…
While you’re getting to know your new reptilian friends, you can order their deep-fried brother. Yes… they literally serve you deep fried lizards while you hold lizards! Oh, and scorpions and cockroaches!
Ummm.. Yeah…We chose to avoid those options thank you very much!
As strange as this place was, we spent about 3 hours holding, cuddling, and naming as many of these creatures as we could. It was tempting to take them home, as many of the reptiles are adoptable!
As I’ve only really grown up with domestic animals (except for the newt which we promptly returned to his mossy pond), it’s pretty fun being able to hold so many cold blooded creatures. I must say, we all felt a bit apprehensive about the two owls in the cafe though. So instead of trying to hold them or bother them, we admired them from afar.
This is definitely a place that you would never find in Canada, so if you find yourself in the Osaka area, you should definitely check them out!
xo