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It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally finished part 2 of Cat Island for TofuguTV. Whew, I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is! Now I can move on to things like monkeys, rabbits and deer… or *gasp* perhaps something totally not-animal related. There were a few of those, believe it or not. The video for Cat Island Part 2 is right there up above at the top of this post, but if you want to see pictures or read a little bit more about what we did, keep on going.

Finding The Cats

It took us half the day to get to the part of the island that actually had cats. Sadly, the first cats we came across were being taken up and hogged by a couple of tourists. They liked taking pictures of cats, which is why they came here

They were having a good time so we didn’t want to bother them for too long and we headed down the road into town to find more cats.

We ran into a store where the other cat-tourist was hanging out, also taking pictures. He was more friendly than the other two cat-tourists and talked with us for a while. There were a lot of fun cats around here, including these ones.

Shinnosuke Instagrammed a shot of the store we just left, then we headed down the road.

Then we headed down the street where we, of course, came across more cats.

This last cat was my favorite of all the cats on the island. We got to see him (her?) several times as we walked around the town. Definitely oen of the more distinct cats, and it had a really cool grumpy look on its face all the time. Chalk me up as a fan of grumpy cats, for some reason…

From here we made our way to the ocean, where we saw a sign to Manga Island.

Manga island was made by Shotaro Ichinomori, a famous mangaka who did things like Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider. You can actually stay in Manga Island. It’s really just a bunch of buildings that are shaped like cats. I wonder what they do with the ear space on the inside…

We made our way down the hill we had to climb to get here.

It was time to go figure out where the ferry would be picking us up, just so we’d know where to go. If we missed the ferry, we’d be stuck here overnight (not a terrible thing, but lodging was sparse). The ferry was only coming to the island twice per day. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

The dock was pretty neat. Unfortunately I heard this is the area that got destroyed by the tsunami, really messing up their fishing industry :( There’s a fund drive going to help them rebuild (and to help feed cats). To donate, you will have to call the organizer (and probably need to be able to speak Japanese). The phone number is 080-2810-2914, if you wanted to help. More info on the help-project here.

We hung out in the nearby park for a little bit, trying to figure out what to do from here.

Watch out, cat! We decided to get something to eat (we were pretty hungry at this point) so we went back up to the store. Good chance to hang out with some cats and get some food, too.

Shinnosuke was a fan of cats.

Here’s the store front, in case you wanted to go.

Fed the cats some cat food. Shinnosuke’s in the background filming.

This cat thinks my backpack is comfortable… or at least the shade is cooling.

I love this green color on the stairs. Reminds me of old copper things. Kind of nostalgic.

We finished our food and started making our way over to the dock where the ferry would come. Guess what!? We ran into more cats.

Even got to see my favorite cat again!

Shinnosuke’s showing us his famous no-look camera technique.

Cool! I wish we saw this map at the beginning and not the end :(

A couple other folks also catching the ferry. They were Tashirojima citizens. Can’t you tell by their age? :/

We headed back to Ishinomaki via the ferry, then made our way back to Tokyo area, stopping to get some Ramen along the way. Oh man, it was tasty.

Cat Island Tashirojima was a lot of fun. Definitely peaceful and a nice atmosphere. If you’re into cats, then it’s the kind of place you’ll almost certainly enjoy. It takes a bit to get out there, but if you time things right you can spend the night and enjoy the island for a bit longer.

If you want to go, I’d probably recommend waiting for a few more months. Maybe 6? The whole area was right next to the earthquake zone and things got hit pretty hard. When you do go, though, definitely spend some money and help out the economy there! I’m sure the people (and the cats) will appreciate it!

If you haven’t seen Cat Island Part 1, you can do so here.

Want to know about future episodes of TofuguTV? Subscribe on YouTube, follow on Twitter, of Like on Facebook for all the latest info! Thanks much for watching, I hope you enjoyed! Also, thanks for waiting for part 2. Sorry for all the trolling about it :P