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Hamster abandoned at Tokyo ramen restaurant gets new home

Casey Baseel Apr 19, 2024
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Not exactly the typical lost-and-found item.

If you run a restaurant, sooner or later you’re going to have a customer who leaves some of their belongings behind when they go home. Maybe they were in a rush, or maybe the meal was so good that their brain was fuzzy from a food coma.

So when that eventually happens, the nice thing to do is to hold onto whatever they left behind in hope that the owner will come back to reclaim it. So that’s what the staff did at the Yazaru Kaido Branch 2 of Ramen Jiro in Tokyo’s Hachioji District on Tuesday night, while putting up a written notice in the window to announce that they’d found something.

ハムスター置いていったひと誰

かわいそうだよ pic.twitter.com/pozjOQvLbY

— 野猿二郎 (@Jiro_Yaenkaido2) April 16, 2024

So what’s the sign say?

“Someone left their hamster behind.”

And no, “hamster” isn’t some sort of Japanese slang term. Apparently someone who ate at the restaurant really did leave their pet hamster, in its enclosure, at Ramen Jiro when they went home. “Who left their hamster behind?” tweeted the restaurant along with the photo. “We feel so bad for it.”

飼ってくれる方募集 pic.twitter.com/FFudxn0wSb

— 野猿二郎 (@Jiro_Yaenkaido2) April 16, 2024

There is, however, a happy ending to the story. Though the hamster’s owner seems to remain a mystery, one of the restaurant’s employees has decided to take the creature in and give it a home.

For the record, taking your hamster for a walk out in town is not something that’s normally done in Japan, and a number of commenters posted suggestions that the new owner get the hamster checked out at a vet, in case it has any health issues that need addressing, and whose costs may have been a reason why the original owner abandoned it. Ham Media, a hamster-focused animal welfare group, also posted a link to resources for organizations that the animal can be entrusted to if the restaurant employee is unable to care for it long-term.

ハムスター支援団体ハムメディアです。
この度は小さな命を救って頂き、ありがとうございます。
ハムちゃんを保護された方向けに以下のページをご用意しております。宜しければご参照ください。
もし従業員の方の長期的な保護が難しい場合は、お近くの交番にご相談ください。https://t.co/1ypxXu9wWn

— ハムメディア_サポート (@Ham_support) April 17, 2024

To be fair, though, I suppose there’s an outside chance that the hamster’s original owner really did forget it by accident, perhaps from hitting up the restaurant after several beers elsewhere, and has just been too hungover to come forward yet.

▼ Though that then begs the question of why he was drinking while out with his hamster.

Ramen Jiro, by the way, is famous for its extra-hearty take on ramen, as shown in this photo of one of the restaurant’s deluxe bowls.