Tokyo: Kitty city
Japan is a country of cat culture. Idioms like neko no te mo karitai, ("I'm so busy I could ask a cat for help") and neko no hitai (literally "a cat's forehead," but colloquially "not enough room to swing a cat") infuse the language.
The ubiquitous maneki neko, or beckoning cat statues, are symbols of good fortune. So it probably shouldn't come as any surprise that Tokyo is filled with cats, too. Tokyo even has cafes dedicated to them, while a Sony invention means cats can now tweet.
Cats: the third kind
Tokyo’s kitties of the city tend to come in three varieties. There’s your average housecat, of course, living in comfort if not freedom in someone’s home. Then you have the nora neko -- the strays.
And finally you have something in between: cats that aren’t feral, but don’t seem to have any home in particular: chiiki neko, or local cats. They’re owned by everyone and nobody, neighborhood mascots of sorts. I guess one could say that friendly nora neko can graduate to become chiiki neko?
The island of Enoshima, about an hour away from downtown, is a particularly target-rich environment for the latter. It’s filled with cats that freely wander from yard to yard, cared for by all the residents and tourists.
The cats in these pictures of our kitty city were spotted all over the metropolitan area. Some were friendly, others not so much, but all of them share one thing in common: they’re a pleasantly fuzzy presence in the corners and shadows of this high-tech metropolis.
Click "View Gallery" above for more pictures.
Click "View Gallery" above for more pictures.
