Sign girl hoping you’ll enter the cat establishment! It’s cold and only 1,000 yen per hour, why not?
My daughter loves cats. She’s a cat lady. A young cat lady, but still a cat lady.
So, it made purrfect sense, along with some of the other Tokyo gems we were visiting like Roppongi Hills, The Grand Sumo Tournament, and the Tsukiji Fish Market, to head to a cat café when we met up with her in Tokyo. Devon had it all planned; it was on her i-phone. We walked, and walked, and walked…around and around, because guess what? Tokyo has no lack of big, tall buildings, buildings that block satellite reception. Yep!
But the dedicated cat people we are, we persevered, asked numerous people, and finally arrived at Cat Heaven! Well, I think it was actually called Calico Cat, but it’s a cat heaven none-the-less.
The cat cafe was located on the 5th and 6th floor, but you had to enter on the 6th floor. And pay. Pay to walk in. 1,000 yen per person for one hour. 1,000 yen. That’s about $10.75 American. What does it come with you ask? Nothing. You can walk in the door of this exclusive cat café . I’ve certainly paid more for an experience, so hey, no problem. Well, like many “experiences” we found out that if you really want to eat at the cat café , you must do so behind a glass booth, but tea in the cat room is okay. Their big seller, though , was the Chicken Snack. With the a bowlful of chickeny goodness, you had some hope for getting to actually pet a cat. These snacks are not meant for humans, but for the cats! Those spoiled, rotten…! I was getting hungry, can you tell!
The upstairs room, complete with cute cat houses, a cat tree…and TV! Relax!
It’s Japan, so we walk in, take off our shoes, find a suitable locker for them, wash our hands so as not to spread germies on the kitties, and meander through the place. On the top floor, the one room with cats is lined with more lockers for coats, handbags, cat snatcher kits, who knows. There’s a lot of storage in this place. There are a few pillows tossed willy-nilly around the floor, a cat tree near the entryway, and a huge TV in the middle of the wall. Of course there were Japanese cartoons on, and plenty of cats roaming around pretending they didn’t want any attention.
Devon doling out her chickenesque cat treats in exchange for a quick pat on the head!
The real action was on the lower floor. As you come down the stairs, it opens into a larger room, with couches along the walls (much more suited to American bodies. That floor-sitting is not for me!) There are plenty of people here like the two cute couples seemingly on dates, and the most interesting of all, the one and only Calico Café cat whisperer!
This guy had his routine down. The cats knew him. He apparently comes in often, with his newspaper and sudoku. He buys a few tins of chickeness and spreads the wealth, so the cats have to learn a little patience. He was courted. He was slept with. He had cats all over him. And he knew it! As the rest of us called, whistled, cajoled, and pathetically offered our bits of over-cooked chicken, he smiled inwardly (maybe a little outwardly) knowing he was the King of the Cat Castle.
The Wise One. The Cat Whisperer. Watch and Learn!
More cat café photos:
Who’s having more fun in this picture?
My favorite photo. So, so Japanese. I imagine her saying, “Here we are on our first date. I’m a little under the weather, and my boyfriend brings me to an itchy cat cafe!”
Have you ever been to a cat café? Did you secretly eat a little chicken goodness? What other theme cafés have you been to? Please comment if you have some cool ones that I can spend my well-earned dollars on!
I am quite jealous of your cat cafe visit! When I first arrived in Tokyo, exhausted from the long flight from Colorado, the people we met up with wanted to do something before we took a night bus to northern Japan. We decided to go to a cat cafe that our friends knew of. So we walked on our sore, complaining feet, dragging our heavy luggage, through the overwhelming district of Akihabara. All this, only to discover that the cafe was closed. We didn’t even bother with anything else, we just waited for our bus to come. I hope I get to visit one of these. This must have been a while ago, for you, because 1,000 yen is certainly much more than $4 these days! It’s more like $13.00.
Hi Candace. Actually, it was only a couple of weeks ago…I made a mistake. I probably dropped the 1 and was trying to write $14. But thanks for catching it. So sorry to hear you didn’t make it to one. One visit was enough for me, but it was a fun experience!