Meguro Parasitological Museum

This building in Shimomeguro is completely free to enter, yet it houses the world's most expensive collection you'd never want to own. Step closer to this modest two-story structure at 4-1-1 Shimomeguro, and you're approaching the planet's only museum dedicated entirely to parasites - creatures that have been humanity's most intimate and unwelcome companions for millennia. Dr. Satoru Kamegai opened these doors in 1953 with a vision so peculiar that even today, couples consider it a romantic date destination. The building's clean white facade gives no hint of the 60,000 specimens lurking within, but as you cross the threshold, you're entering a world where every jar contains a story of survival... just not the kind you'd hope for. Look up as you climb to the second floor - somewhere in these walls hangs the museum's crown jewel: an 8.8-meter tapeworm that once called a human body home, stretched longer than a city bus. The patient had simply eaten fish containing a young parasite, never knowing they were nurturing what would become this record-breaking resident. In the gift shop, you can purchase keychains with actual parasites suspended in acrylic - because nothing says "I visited Tokyo" quite like carrying a preserved worm in your pocket. Here in Meguro, they've turned humanity's oldest fears into the world's strangest pilgrimage.