Review: Owl Café Akiba Fukurou Tokyo

Hello Steemians!

The place is called Akiba Fukurou Tokyo (貓頭鷹親近館). It was a bit of a struggle to find and we walked past the place twice before finding it as the signs are not really in English. We were quite new to Tokyo and Japan at the time so this might be the reason why we got lost so easily.

However, there are chairs outside and this is a general indication of an animal café’s location. Booking ahead is advised because we had to wait about an hour before we were allowed to go inside.

Around the corner there are plenty of places to eat so we just had lunch while we waited.

You pay 1500 yen for one hour with the owls and this includes a free laminated picture taken with the café’s camera (a Canon 5D). Ours resides on our fridge complete with lovely magnets from Japan.

Location: 67 Kanda Neribeichō, Chiyoda-ku, Tōkyō-to, 101-0022, Japan (look for the chairs out front). Take the metro to Akihabara station and walk there.

If you’re easily lost, like we were, getting a cab to take you to the address is preferable.

The place is quiet and I mean library quiet. The hosts will tell you off if you raise your voice higher than a whisper – even outside while waiting – so remember to keep as silent as possible.

This is to keep the owls calm and happy. Owls shrink when they are frightened and puff up when they’re feeling relaxed and maybe even confident.

The owls love low light obviously and my D3300 does not perform well in low light conditions. However, I was able to get some decent shots by moving further away and taking advantage of the telephoto lens I was using (Nikkor 55-300 AFS).

You’re not allowed to take flash photos and the light meter sometimes turns on to auto-focus which can spook the owls and so it is frowned upon.

Smart phones are probably the way to go unless you have a full-frame camera that will allow you to get as much light as possible.

The cafe does let you handle the owls but only those that have the green signs.

Red signs mean they’re resting and cannot be handled. Check with the hosts to see if a particular breed of owl is available.

The biggest owl they had weighed a massive 3kg and I was lucky enough to hold the second heaviest owl in the café – he weighed only 1kg but it was impressive nonetheless.

Sometimes they're sleeping and other times they seem wide awake.

If you're not familiar with spending time with larger birds, the cafe is a great place to get familiar with them. They have informational booklets in English and Japanese packed with cool owl facts.

If you've been here or had a similar animal cafe experience, please leave your photos in the comments :)

Thanks for reading :)