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

Cat Island Japan. It’s an island covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of cats. People population? Under 100. This island has become a little tourist attraction for people who happen to like cats. You can take pictures of them, pet (some of) them, stay in cat-shaped lodging, and even visit a cat shrine. It’s a little Cat Mecca of sorts, and it’s also the very first episode of TofuguTV.

In This Episode

I’d recommend watching the video (above) before reading this if you don’t want “spoilers” (I put quotes because there probably isn’t too much to spoil in the way of plot twists, etc… this is a travel show, after all).

In this episode, I’m joined by Shinnosuke (follow on Twitter), a friend from college who’s from the Saitama region of Japan. We traveled to a few different places, one of which was “Cat Island” (aka Tashirojima). Traveling from Sendai to Ishinomaki by train, then from Ishinomaki to Tashirojima by ferry, we arrived in the early afternoon, searching for cats. Unfortunately, finding cats was difficult for a while, since we got off on the side of the island that didn’t have cats.

This episode is all about getting to Tashirojima, as well as our search for the cats of “Cat Island.” Will we find cats? You’ll have to watch to find out.

What Is Cat Island?

Cat Island (aka Tashirojima / 田代島) is a small island off of Ishinomaki (and all of this is east of Sendai, Japan). Most of the population is pretty old, with an average age between 60 and 70 (that’s old!). Their main industries include fishing and people visiting to come look at the cats. A while back, fishermen started feeding the cats thinking it was good luck. After a while, people started noticing the amount of cats on the island, and it became a little tourist attraction.

There are two villages on the island (Oodomari and Nitoda), with Nitoda containing most of the cats. Near the centerish of the island (though closer to Nitoda) is the “Cat Shrine” (猫神社). There are cat shaped buildings (also near Nitoda), as well as various other (smaller) attractions. Although you can walk from Oodomari to Nitoda, most of the “fun stuff” is on the Nitoda side, so try to stop on that side if you’re going.

Earthquake Info: Cat Island was very close to the quake. Although there’s a lot of info floating about in regards to the damage to the island, there’s nothing concrete, and nothing I’d deem as “reliable.” Most of Nitoda is built on a pretty big hill, so that’s a good sign. Oodomari was built a lot lower and closer to sea level. Solely based off of that, I’d say (at the very least) you can assume all the “Tashirojima is submerged in water” headlines are just there to get hits. Aside from that, absolutely nothing reliable has come out. If you want to support Cat Island, wait a year or so and go visit them (and spend money). In the meantime, spreading rumors about Cat Island won’t help, so everybody calm down and wait for good info!

How To Get To “Cat Island” (Tashirojima)

Currently, getting to Tashirojima is probably a bit of a challenge because of the earthquake damage. If you’re coming from the south (good chance you are), you’ll want to get to the city of Sendai. From Sendai, you can take a local train to Ishinomaki (which was pretty heavily damaged in the quake). From there, there’s a ferry (or perhaps… there was a ferry?) that can take you to Tashirojima. We took a cab from the train station to the harbor with the ferry.

Should You Go?

If you like cats, then yeah, it’s awesome. It’s a bit out of the way, and definitely would be considered “rural.” There are places to stay, but the main one (the one with cat shaped buildings) is closed part of the year (for winter). You can definitely make this a day trip (it’s pretty easy to walk across the island in a couple hours, even if you look at things along the way). There isn’t much in the way of places to eat, though depending on when you’re there you might be able to find something. Still, I’d recommend bringing lunch / dinner just in case. Also, bring cat food / treats! It’ll make the cats love you, I’m sure.

You can find more travel information on the island here, though they haven’t (as of writing this) posted anything about the earthquake.

Pictures From “Cat Island Part 1″

These are some pictures that were taken during part 1 of Cat Island. You can view more of these / higher resolution version of these in the TofuguTV Flickr Set.

Getting ready to get on the ferry to head off to Cat Island

On the ferry

Arriving at Cat Island

Shinnosuke walking up from the dock

Heading up the stairs to the temple

Lots of stairs

Left at the Cat Shrine

Cat Shrine on Cat Island

Left at the Cat Shrine

Cat Shrine, Again

A view of all the stuff left behind for the Cat Shrine

The old school

The View from up top

A couple of tourists to the island who came to take pictures

Apparently they’re really into cats…

The next episode will have a lot more cats, I promise! Thanks for waiting all this time, I’ll hopefully get the next episode out a lot quicker than this one. Maybe in two weeks? Hopefully editing will get better too – still learning how to do stuff! :)

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