Visiting a Hedgehog Cafe in Tokyo

HARRY HEDGEHOG CAFE

I’ve already shared my experience of staying at a capsule hotel in Tokyo. Another item I’ve ticked off my Japan bucket list is a hedgehog cafe. I first heard about the cafe when it opened in 2016 – right after my first trip to Japan!

Last month was my second time visiting Japan, and I managed to drag Chris over to Harry in Harajuku on our second day in Tokyo. No hedgehogs were harmed in the making of this post!

What you need to know:

• Harry is open from 12am to 8pm, with the last admissions at 7pm.
• It costs 1,400 yen (around £9 or $12.60 USD) per person for 30 minutes, or 1,630 yen (£10.60 or $14.70 USD) including a hedgehog snack. This also includes a free drink from the vending machine – that means lovely Green Tea!
• The hedgehogs are well taken care of. Staff at Harry’s will constantly keep an eye out and check how the hedgehogs are doing. Hedgehogs are given breaks, so they’re not constantly being handled.
• The staff all speak great English and will teach you how to handle the hedgehogs.
• Harry is located very near Harajuku station. There is another one near Roppongi station.

When Chris and I arrived, the first thing we saw was a tiny vending machine. We purchased one ticket including hedgehog snacks and one normal ticket. A member of staff asked us to clean our hands with disinfectant before showing us to our seats.

We had the pleasure of hanging out with 4 hedgehogs, all with different attitudes and energy levels. A member of staff showed us how to properly scoop up and hold the hedgehogs and then left us to enjoy our 30 minutes. Chris went for the gloves after one of the hedgehogs had a nibble on his finger during the demonstration.

The hedgehogs loved the snacks we got them so I would recommend paying the extra money for that. You’re basically given a tiny bucket filled with a few dried worms and some tweezers to handle them with. If you have the snacks, they’re guaranteed to be interested in you!

To be honest, I think our hedgehogs would have preferred to sleep rather than play with us and we quickly learned which ones out of our 4 were the most willing to be scooped up. A couple of times we scooped them up so gently that they didn’t even wake up, which was really sweet to see! The Japanese girls next to us thought our sleeping hedgehogs looked very kawaii!

Check out the video below to see how you’re meant to scoop up and feed the hedgehogs:

I really enjoyed the experience and would love to do it again! Hedgehogs are much better animals for this sort of thing than owls. Even Chris enjoyed the experience!

Have you ever been to an animal cafe? What do you think of this one?