Bunny Cafe in Asakusa, Tokyo (Seriously, a cafe with loads of rabbits in it)

About the time I left for Tokyo a little more than a month ago, Yahoo! came out with an interesting article, titled From Rent-a-Friends to Chairs that Give Hugs: Japan's Wacky Anti-Loneliness Attractions. Anti-loneliness? A bit strange, but why not, if they're wacky? I immediately zeroed in on one of the certainly wacky attractions, the Bunny-hug cafes.

Shah and I used to talk about getting rabbits as pets but as we ourselves are high maintenance enough, we really are in no place to care for other living beings. A bunny cafe might just be the next best thing!

This is how much fun you might be experiencing once you're inside the cafe, but it really depends on how much you like your rabbit...read on for more info on that

This is how the cafe looks like from the outside; I really should have taken its exterior photo before the store closed, apologies for this sad excuse of a photo, and for the blurry photo of the brochure!

When I first read the link to the bunny cafe in the Yahoo! article, I thought, "Oh, OK, 600 yen doesn't sound bad at all!" but DO NOT BE FOOLED. You will NOT pay a mere 600 yen for some bunny fun time, nuh-uh, not even near. Before Shah and I walked in, one of the staffs walked us through the "menu".

Now, before I divulge anything else, it's a bit far-fetched to call this place "cafe", as all they serve is drinks from a machine and some raw veggies. And guess what, the raw veggies aren't even for you.

You're allowed to customise your experience and you do so by picking out what you want from the menu. Some of the things you might have to fork out for:

• A compulsory charge of 500 yen per person
• A charge per rabbit, per half an hour minimum (You're allowed to have one rabbit between the two of you or one rabbit each; we chose one to share...at first, anyway, but more on this later)
• A hefty price tag for a private room, per person, and even more for the open-space terrace; we chose the cheapest private room. You're free to just hang out with your bunny at the lobby of the cafe, though, no extra charge there, but I really don't need the staffs to see me not knowing how to pat my bunny the right way and whatnots... 
• Raw veggies that are not for you; if you're into feeding rabbits then get ready to get excited! (Me? I've always been afraid of animal teeth, unfortunately)
• Drinks from a machine; we chose not to order any drink because pretty sure my homemade tea and Milo would taste way better than any bunny-cafe-made drinks
• Our personal total spending = approximately 7000 yen

Not even kidding. Shah and I spent like RM 200 on our bunny time, for a mere half hour. Nuts, just nuts.

After paying, we were asked to choose a bunny of our choice from this room:

"Hello, won't you pick me?"

"Wait, how about ME?"

"No, pick me pick me PICK ME!"

"Um, yeh, I guess you could pick me too"

It's not like the cafe has 50 rabbits to choose from but they were all SO DARN CUTE. I chose Tama, the little brown cutie pie I cuddled with in the second photo of this post. And that was when Shah's composition crumbled—he was falling for Beagle, the floppy-eared bunny, in this photo above. So we did what any of you would do: we "ordered" another bunny to play with.

That's right, we ended up with not one bunny, but TWO. One bunny each! But that means more yens flying out of Shah's pocket, thus explaining why our bill racked up to 7000 yen, but who cared at this point? We have ONE BUNNY EACH!

This is how we carried our bunny to the room

Our private room is divided into three smaller spaces, where only one bunny is to occupy one space at a time.

Me cooing to Tama

Note the free wifi, which means you can upload your best cuddly wuddly bunny photo to Instagram/Facebook/ Twitter and make everybody jealous and want to be you at that moment.

Shah petting Beagle

We were initially super stoked to interact with them bunnies, but we learned a very important lesson early on: rabbits like to poop. And they poop a lot. A lot.
A. LOT.
And they don't mind urinating everywhere, either.

Shah was like, "Too. Much. Poop. NO. OTHER. WORD."

"Oh no oh NO did I just step on his POO my shoes are newwwww" *wails*

Folks, that is what the little pink blankets are for. Let cute bunnies poop on the blankets and not on you.

Thankfully I had plopped Tama back down on the floor before I picked him up again, and that was when I noticed Tama's deposits on the floor. My jacket and jeans were safe, you all, not to worry.

From then on, we only occasionally picked them up and let them play on the floor more—the bunnies don't really like being held that much anyway . Turns out there's a reason why the shop leaves boxes of tissue lying around: it's so that you can pick up those tiny poo pebbles. And you should, lest you step on them!
.

Isn't Tama just like the Velveteen Rabbit?

Beagle peeking at me

I don't know what it is about the pink blanket that the bunnies like but wave one at them and they come scurrying forward to you (or more precisely, the blanket; just place the blanket on your lap and you get the illusion the rabbit wants YOU).

Tama is definitely the friendlier one out of the two, whereas Beagle enjoyed her freedom too much. Beagle does not like to be picked up, at all.

Those flappy ears are awfully cute, though!

Shah and I switched places after a while because Beagle simply refused to be cuddly. Needless to say, after our half hour was up, Shah much, much preferred Tama over his original choice.

If you judge the two rabbits by their appearance, you probably would make the same mistake as I did, thinking Tama was a female and Beagle was the boy, but, no, it's the other way around. The staff told us to never let the two bunnies touch, but then we were told that Tama and Beagle have a thing for each other. That made things a little difficult for us, see, because one kept trying to reach for the other through the openings of the tiny white fence between the spaces. But we did our best!

Tama and Beagle are quite feisty, especially Beagle; she's a bit of a jumper. At one point, she wanted to get to Tama so bad she climbed onto the little wide couch-stool and jumped to Tama's side of the room. She definitely had Shah and I panicking for a few seconds. After that we raised the top part of the couch-stool just to ensure no jumping over to the other side, like this:

Shah and I switched back so that I could have the last few minutes with Tama, who really is a cutie.

(Note: At this point Shah and I refused to touch Beagle because she had rolled around in her own urine and poo)

Then it was time for them to be back in the baskets.

And back to their cages they went.

A staff putting Tama safely back into his cage

Verdict:
Shah and I are definitely not going to keep rabbits as pets after this experience. We still like oohing and aahing over how cute they look and all but we're just going to remain doing that from now on (Really, who knew rabbits poop that much?).
We don't feel the need to come back to any bunny cafe either, but never say never, right?

I do suggest you visit a bunny cafe if you're ever in Tokyo, as it will really be a memory to treasure. All the cuteness and poo and soft fur, all simply fantastic, I say.

Are you interested to visit this particular one? Splendid!
I'm terrible at giving out directions but I'll try for the bunnies' sake: 

Take a Metro to Asakusa station. Since I can't remember which exit to take, look for a map of the town inside the station—thankfully, most train stations in Tokyo, if not all, have at least one map of the town you're currently in—and look for the Matsuya department store on the map (hopefully it IS on the map...). It might be helpful to know that if you take the Tobu Railway instead of Metro to Asakusa, you would end up at the entrance of Matsuya department store itself. 
Face the main entrance of the department store, then walk adjacent to the store on its left side until you arrive to the back of the building. You will see a small alleyway on your right which could look a little scary, but really isn't. Walk along this alleyway until you reach another road, then turn left and walk straight. You should see the thinnest 6-floor building on your right, with a bunny banner somewhere on the side of the building. If you haven't figured it out, you've reached your destination!