Day 2 - Calico Cat Cafe

It may sound silly to some of you, but visiting a cat cafe in Tokyo was on my list of things to do.  As it turns out, by the luckiest of coincidences, Lizzy had looked up cat cafes before the trip and had found the same cafe as I had found in Shinjuku.  So when Lizzy and Amanda brought up finding a cat cafe in Shinjuku while we were in the Nakamise Shopping Arcade, I jumped at the chance.  I'm not about to waste the chance when it's right there in front of me.  So we had our mission to complete before the welcome dinner that night.

Before I get started, I feel I should explain cat cafes.  From what I was told, the majority of apartment complexes in the more developed parts of Tokyo do not allow pets.  Then there are many other people who feel they travel too much and are away from home too much to be responsible for pets.  Others would love the companionship of a pet, but they don't want the responsibility.  What option do these people have?

Enter the cat cafe!  In the end, a cat cafe is simply a place you can go to relax, order a coffee or other drink, maybe a snack, and enjoy one of many manga (Japanese comic book) or other book stocked at the cafe.  And cats are everywhere.  It seems like a very sensible arrangement to me.

So, now to our story.  Amanda, Lizzy, and I made it back to Shinjuku and began our search.  We realize pretty quickly that none of us remembered to write down the address.  We were fairly certain it was on the main road, since Lizzy and I had both found it on Google maps before the trip, but we also knew it was going to be on the upper floors of a building.  That means it probably wasn't going to be easy to find.  Notice I said "probably".

In this case "probably" turned out to be "easy" because Lizzy spotted  the place in about two minutes.  Turns out I had walked by a rather obvious sign a few times last night without spotting it.  Oh well, it didn't really matter at this point, I guess.  We make our way into the building and end up at the entrance to the Calico Cat Cafe on the 6th floor.

We're greeted by an employee who promptly hands us a list of rules in English, including not picking up the cats, not waking the cats up, and not doing anything that would anger the cats.  As we learn, there is a flat rate for the amount of time you spend in the cafe, plus any drinks, snacks, or other things you purchase during your stay.  We leave our shoes in lockers, take the tags given to us so employees can identify us if we order anything (you don't pay for anything until you leave), and wash our hands.  This is another rule, and it makes sense.  But that's getting a bit ahead of the story.

We enter the cafe proper, and of course one of the cats makes a break for it.  Fortunately, or unfortunately for the cat, the girl who helped us is there to snag the little devil, and she takes him in with us.  Cats are lounging around everywhere, of course, and there are about five or six people just sitting around, enjoying watching the felines.  A couple people are tempting the cats over with toys.  All in all, it was a very relaxed atmosphere.

As I might have mentioned, I had looked up this place before the trip, and I'd picked out a few of the cats as my favorites from the pictures on the website.  I was lucky enough to spot my favorite almost immediately, Taiga (pronounced Tye-gah).

 The second one is a better shot of him, I think.  Taiga is a Maine Coon, and he's the biggest cat in the place.  He's my favorite because he reminds me of my mother's Maine Coon, Toby.  Taiga basically was just chilling out, so I scratched behind his ears and went looking around again.  I quickly found the other Maine Coon, Hyuuga (pronounced Hyoo-gah) pretty quickly.  They're easy to spot because of their size.

Hyuuga!

Taiga ad Hyuuga are brothers, although Hyuuga seems to have more white in his coat.  For a little bit, I just walked around taking pictures.  Here are a few of the cats, although I don't remember their names.

 This one wasn't nearly as mean as he looked.  He was a big teddy bear who loved scratches behind his ears.

The cafe actually takes up two floors, by the way.  The 6th floor has the entrance, and a few play areas for the cats.  The 5th floor, which seems to only be accessible via a stairway in the cafe, has the place to order snacks, as well as this area in the last photo above.  Also, the shelves where you can pick out a manga to read are somewhere to the back left of the photo.  When you charge by the amount of time a person stays, it makes sense to give them as many reasons as you can to stay.

Several of the cats barely even came up to you to sniff your hand before they immediately went off in the other direction.  As it turns out, there's a reason for this.  You can purchase a small tupperware container of chicken to feed to the cats.  The little scavengers knew this, and about half of them were only interested in you if they thought you had food on you.  Remember how I mentioned the requirement to wash your hands would make sense?  Here's why.

Of course, Amanda and Lizzy buy some chicken.  Now we come to the first of several funny moments that happened fairly quickly.  It's too bad I didn't have a video of this, but those cats have learned to recognize those little chicken containers.  The moment the girl brought it out, they swarmed like a pack of sharks to chum.

You might just be able to make out that the orange one there was reaching out its pawn to pull Amanda's hand towards it to get the chicken.  Very funny.

My favorite cat during this scene was this one below.

This little devil was doing the best gargoyle impression I've ever seen.

So the fervor dies down a bit since the chicken has run out.  Like I said, scavengers.  But the best part of the visit was still to come.  We were lucky enough to be there when feeding time came around.  For the second time in less than an hour, I wish I had been able to get a video of this, but I didn't have the time.  The moment the girl came out with the food trays, the stampede was on.

The blurs should let you know how fast these cats were moving.  There really isn't a better way to describe how many cats came charging in than to just show you what I can of the resulting chaos.

At this point, I'm laughing pretty hard, but we're not done quite yet.  The ladies who work there encourage the guests to take some of the food from the bowls and hold it out.  The cats are quite willing to eat the food out of your hands.

That one sniffed at my hand, but decided to visit Lizzy instead.  I hate to say it, but it kinda hurt my feelings a bit....

....But thankfully Hyuuga was there to make me feel better.  I knew I liked Maine Coons for a reason.

Realizing we were running short on time, and not really sure that anything could top The Running of the Nekos (Cats; and for anyone know knows Japanese; yes, I know Nekos shouldn't have an S on it, but I don't care in this case), we begin to head back upstairs, but not before I spot this furry little devil.

All in all, I had a blast at the Calico Cat Cafe.  On your way out, they give you a book with several pictures of every cat in the cafe and a discount card for your next visit.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it back to here during my second round in Tokyo, but I hope to be back.

Thank you to the Calico Cat Cafe, the employees, and especially the cats for a great time.

And now it's time to head to our full-course Japanese dinner here in Takayama.  I'm still behind on my blogging, but I'm working on it!  The next blog will be about our day trip to Kamakura and my first real look at Mount Fuji!