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This is the best photo title I have ever created. It really gets to the point. For a little background on this, when my son and I were just in Tokyo, he wanted to go to an Owl Cafe, which supposedly is a cafe where you go eat food and an owl is there with you the whole time. It sounded really strange, so I said yes. And I was hungry. Anyway, inside, it was really strange, I must say. The place was almost impossible to find in vertical Tokyo. I got to the address and saw a Very Tiny Owl sticker up on the fourth floor of this building. I still can't believe I even found the sticker. Anyway, up a narrow stairway we go to our “lunch appointment time” of 1 PM. I had set up the appointment via the online site that also explained to me that the owls were available for purchase. After we got in, there were three giggling Japanese girls waiting for their “lunch appointment” too. I was ready to get on with it, because I was getting quite hungry. So, we go into this tiny room that has a fridge on one side and about 14 owls on the other. They were all on little pedestals. There were no tables or chairs. Strange, I thought, for a cafe. And then the guy that works there, who was very nice, gave us all a very tiny juice box. It turns out that the lunch part was for the owls, as he went around and fed them mouse hearts while we watched. He also explained to us how not to get attacked by the owls while we stroke them from above. The guy also spent five minutes explaining we had a small round sticker on our tiny juice boxes that we could remove and re-stick on a poster to indicate our favorite owl. This one poor owl only had a few stickers because he attacks all the humans in the cafe. I gave him a sticker to try to improve his mood. Anyway, I can't really say I recommend this place unless everything I said above sounds really awesome to you. - Trey Ratcliff Click here to read the rest of this post at the Stuck in Customs blog.
Trey Ratcliff - StuckInCustoms.com - Creative Commons Noncommercial contact licensing@stuckincustoms.com
Bustling Beijing Getting this photo was not easy at all!I knew of this area of Beijing called the CBD, or Central Business District. I notice that they have all these catchy names here, much like the building I took this photo from: "China Merchants Building." At any rate, I had the driver circle the business district a few times so I could find a good angle. We found one in this building, but did not know if we could take a photo from the top floor. Woo went in first. This might have been a mistake because during the shoot he admitted he had a dreadful fear of heights. But he said it in such a charming British accent I thought it could have been my subconscious.We went up to the 32nd floor. No windows no dice. We then went to the 31st floor, but the confused secretary would not let us through. Then we tried 30. The secretary said yes and let us into a boardroom, but the angle was not right and the other offices were busy. So we went to 29.The secretary on 29 was confused so I instructed Woo to tell her, firmly, "We are with the Government."- Trey RatcliffFind out what happened here at stuckincustoms.com.