Photos from Kyushu II (Cat Lady Edition)
Japanese are into cats. Much more so than Koreans. My mother, after seeing all the cat paraphernalia, commented that Hello Kitty didn't just spring up out of nowhere, that she comes from a long line of cat representations.
In Yufuin there's a shop that's entirely devoted to cat related stuff - cat statues, like the very realistic one below, and cat related art, like the framed picture next to it, and cat shaped purses and cat print hankerchiefs and so on.
In the folk village in Yufuin there was also a stone cat statue that people had placed coins on. I am not sure why. Guessing that it's some sort of cat-spirit-demigod-thingy. It was very cute though! And I was charmed because it's a short legged fat cat, like mine.
Next to the giant buddha bronze statue there was a little area for the Religion Cat.
We went to this castle whose name I keep forgetting, but it's in Fukuoka.
Inside the castle is a museum, and in the museum is this giant model of what the pre-reconstruction original castle looked like.
And inside the model castle museum exhibit was a little tiny live kitten.
At first, I was like, Oh how weird, they put a kitten doll into the museum exhibit, what is that about?
And then the kitty went blink blink and I was all HEY THAT THING IS REAL.
I pointed to cat and said to the Japanese tourist next to me "Um, nekko!" And she goes, "Ah? Nekko??" and she saw it and said to her husband "Nekko-[something something]" and we all stared at the cat and the cat stared back, but since "cat" is about the extent of my Japanese vocabulary we could not engage in any further discussion.
I have never so wanted to speak Japanese in my life. I so so wanted to ask someone, you know, Do you know there's a cat in that exhibit??
In Yufuin there's a shop that's entirely devoted to cat related stuff - cat statues, like the very realistic one below, and cat related art, like the framed picture next to it, and cat shaped purses and cat print hankerchiefs and so on.
In the folk village in Yufuin there was also a stone cat statue that people had placed coins on. I am not sure why. Guessing that it's some sort of cat-spirit-demigod-thingy. It was very cute though! And I was charmed because it's a short legged fat cat, like mine.
Next to the giant buddha bronze statue there was a little area for the Religion Cat.
We went to this castle whose name I keep forgetting, but it's in Fukuoka.
Inside the castle is a museum, and in the museum is this giant model of what the pre-reconstruction original castle looked like.
And inside the model castle museum exhibit was a little tiny live kitten.
At first, I was like, Oh how weird, they put a kitten doll into the museum exhibit, what is that about?
And then the kitty went blink blink and I was all HEY THAT THING IS REAL.
I pointed to cat and said to the Japanese tourist next to me "Um, nekko!" And she goes, "Ah? Nekko??" and she saw it and said to her husband "Nekko-[something something]" and we all stared at the cat and the cat stared back, but since "cat" is about the extent of my Japanese vocabulary we could not engage in any further discussion.
I have never so wanted to speak Japanese in my life. I so so wanted to ask someone, you know, Do you know there's a cat in that exhibit??