Saturday, February, 4.  Our plan on this day was to go to a free event called Winter Hobby Fair ’17, which was a huge, free, hobby and gaming expo inside Kyocera Osaka Dome.  (This arena is home to one of Osaka’s oft-losing baseball teams called the Orix Buffalos.  I actually thought they were minor league because no one ever talks about them.  The Hanshin Tigers are Osaka’s most loved baseball team.)  The next Nintendo gaming system called Nintendo Switch was going to be previewed at this event and the kids were looking forward to playing it in advance, since its release date isn’t until next month.  And a large exhibit of Pokemon Sun and Moon was going to be featured there.  We had read that this Hobby Fair was only coming to four cities in Japan and it sounded like a huge event.  Unfortunately it was a super rainy day.  When we arrived at Kyocera Dome the line stretched on for a distance that I can’t even describe.

This photo cannot even do the scenario justice.  This line went around on both sides of the street, up and down stairs and inside and outside this arena.  We were told the wait was around 3 hours to get in.  Everyone was holding an umbrella.  We decided that a 3 hour wait in the rain did not justify whatever was inside.  Still, it was a disappointment.  Instead, we decided to find somewhere for lunch.  It cost us $12 per person, round trip to get from our house to the Kyocera Dome via public transportation so we wanted to make the most of being downtown, despite the rain.  We realized we were really close to Kuromon Ichiba Market, which I already wrote about when my mother’s cousin Clyde came to visit.  We had been wanting to take the kids there so off we went.  On the way to Kuromon Ichiba we passed the Lucky Owl Cafe!

Ever since we discovered Neko No Jikan, the Cat Cafe in Osaka’s downtown Shinsaibashi, the next thing on our list was going to an Owl Cafe.  What luck!  We had a free afternoon and the Lucky Owl Cafe was in our path.  But first, lunch at Kuromon Ichiba.

This is a big daytime street market.  The stalls are filled with food booths, clothing, pharmacy and gift items, handbags, luggage and other trinkets.  But, it’s mainly food of all types.  The restaurant folks come here early in the morning to buy their daily produce, meat and seafood.  We sampled a number of things.  Halyard got some kind of grilled beef (Kobe?) that he said was melt in your mouth delicious.  He wouldn’t share it.


Kaiyo ordered some too, and he reluctantly gave Avalon a bite.  They said it was yummy.  Later, Halyard, Kaiyo and Avalon all shared grilled beef tongue on a stick.  They liked it!  I ate grilled scallops on a stick.  John ordered fish and a beer.  Avalon also ate fried chicken on a stick.  Kaiyo and Avalon wanted to try ichigo daifuku.  This is fresh strawberry and anko (bean paste) wrapped inside mochi.  They should have tried it at the church where we went to mochitsuki.  It was a little expensive here so I told them they had better like it.  They didn’t.  I had to eat it.

We sampled green tea which was being handed out by a young man who was Japanese but spoke perfect English.  It turned out his name was Tony and he grew up in Canada.  This is where the kids ate the tongue so while it was being grilled we stood around and talked to Tony.  At the end I really wanted to try premium belly tuna.  It was 3500 yen for a small amount.  That’s about $32 (with our good exchange rate) for 8 slices of sashimi tuna.  $4 a slice!  I got it and we all shared it.  The tuna was delicious!  It was soft with a creamy texture and flavorful.  It wasn’t so amazing that I am in a rush to spend that much again, but it was worth trying.On to the Lucky Owl Cafe!  Halyard decided to leave us and go home at this point.  Apparently he isn’t an owl lover or he just had his limit of being with his family.  Either way, he said good-bye and headed for the train station.

Like the Cat Cafe, the Lucky Owl Cafe has some rules.  The rules include: (1) You must spray your hands with a disinfectant spray before going in the owl room. (2) You can only pet them if you stroke their beak.  Otherwise they might freak out.  (3) Some owls are new so you can’t touch the new owls.  (4) You can’t make loud noises (5) No flash photography (6) You can order drinks but you must drink them outside of the owl room (7) You have an hour.

The owls were so cute!  There were barn owls and snowy white owls (Hedwig!), big imposing owls and little tiny owls that looked like babies even though they weren’t.  Also real baby owls that were less than a year old.  One owl named Morio, shown here and also at the top with Avalon, was a favorite and he sat on a perch by the door.  He was so cute!  Morio made a lot of coo-ing noises that were super kawaii.  It was like he was talking to you.

I didn’t really notice any of the owls spinning their heads around 360 degrees, but some did seem to spin at least 180 degrees which was cool. 
Kaiyo and Avalon are having staring contests with the owls!  I don’t know who won.

We spent the whole hour there.  It was fun.  The owls were interesting.  Their little foreheads had soft feathers above their beaks which was okay to touch.  Most of them didn’t seem to mind, though a few wanted to nip at our fingers.  It was a little more expensive than the cat cafe, but since I don’t have owls at home it seemed like a better way to spend our time and money.  Overall, the people who worked there really seemed to care about the owls and the owls interacted with them kindly.  I thought it was a great way to bring owl awareness to the public.

This owl was all by his lonesome in the corridor outside the bathroom!  I heard some people ask why this owl was all by himself.  The staff said he was too big and there were too many owls in the main room for him to comfortably fit with the others so he had to be off by himself.  Poor lonely bird.

After that we went home to see if Halyard was doing his homework.