Tokyo Parasite Museum
 well, these are 2 hell of parasites! |
I discovered the Parasite Museum soon
after I arrived nearly yenless in Tokyo
about 10 years ago after a year
of Asia Travel.
Was at a party and had just meet a fine upstanding well-heeled filly from an old, venerable Tokyo family, and asked her for a date, and was flabbergasted when she accepted. Flipping out about where I should take her, since I had no money to spare on such a frivolous endeavor as a date, so I started thumbing through the Tokyo Journal saw "Parasite Museum (Free)", and my fate was sealed. |
So, we meet the next day at Meguro Station, and started walking to the museum. As you enter it, there is a fine speciman tacked in a picture frame in serpentine fashion. It's a 10 meter (30 feet) long tapeworm taken outta a poor fool from Yokohama. (And I started thinking about whether I should be scarfing sushi like a madman!!). This museum was started by the four Japanese University professors who were parasite specialists and over the years had collected jillions of parasites, and felt that these treasures should be shared with the public at large!! Thank you so much!! There are all kinds of parasites on exhibit here and for some of them, they have accompanying pictures of the ones that have adverse side-effects on their host. For example, there is one that gets in men's testicles and causes them to inflate to a huge size. There is a picture of some poor sucker whose jewels have become so large that he has to use a wheel barrel to haul them around. I swear it!! And to add to our viewing pleasure these fine folks also have included exhibits of other pests, such as mosquitos and cockroaches. After an hour or so of feasting our eyes, we went across the street for a nice bowl of ramen noodles (there is a ramen museum in Yokohama, by the way). That sweet fine filly had a glazed look in her eye and was mostly silent during the meal, so I was assuming this was not the most romantic first date of all time, and most likely our last. But lo and behold, she called me up the next day, and asked me to come see her band play at a live club. She was a student at Keio University, which is one of Japan's best, and played bass in an all girl rock&roll band. And we continued to have a great dating life for the next 3 years, but unfortunately, I went into a sowing my wild oats stage (now I have advanced to wild rice, before attempting the final ascent to the highest level-wild goobers), so we drifted apart. Sincerely, Mr. Huggsie