Tanabata Day

Today is the most romantic day of the japanese year! I was told the story behind this on the way to the Indigo Dyeing place. It is so bitter sweet! This version is from Wikipedia.

Orihime, daughter of the Tentei (Sky King), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (Milky Way). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (a cow herder) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer wove cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. However, the first time they tried to meet they found they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.

It's raining. 

However, it wasn't yesterday, which is when I went to the Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri.

That is Tokyo's Skytree Tower, in case you were wondering, which is a fairly recent landmark. The festival was awesome! Let me lay some pictures on you.

That last one is a branch of bamboo more or less duck taped to a lamp post. It is said that if you write a wish down and tie it to a bamboo tree it will come true at midnight tonight. Apparently it works even if the branch is no longer attached to the tree. I'd also never seen women in traditional dress eating sausage-on-a-stick or kebabs before, but caught both yesterday. The street performers were great. This guy was wobbling about on a ladder while getting ready to juggle three clubs.

The reluctant volunteer standing in the middle of the photo was waiting to throw him the third club and as the ladder wobbled to face different directions he kept being asked to move round to face the performer, who would then wobble in another direction. It was very funny even though I couldn't understand a word. The real highlight for me though were the groups of dancers, of which I saw two. Each one was a procession with a group of delicately dressed and elegantly moving women at the front followed by a group of "men" dancing quite raucously behind them, followed by musicians. I say "men" because some of them were women, but I'm guessing it wasn't always like that. The contrast between the women and men's groups were striking and the men's group were really enjoying themselves, like they expected to catch their ladies in the end.

Every now and again the procession would pause for some set piece dance - first with the ladies and then with the men.

It was really brilliant! I'm so glad I went.

Happy Birthday To Me!

I was looking for a photo to add to this blogpost and came across this on Flickr.

Perfect!

Happy 36th birthday to meeeeeeeeee!

A Review of Cat Cafe Nanny and Neko Jelala, both near Akihabara

Today was a momentous day. Not only did I recover my Uniqlo shopping, which I'd left on a bus on Monday, from the Lost and Found Office, but I also visited two new cat cafes, bringing my grand total up to five!

These two places are just a few minutes walk apart in distance, but worlds apart in experience. Read on for copious pictures of cats.

Neko Jelala Cat Cafe

I admit I didn't take as many photos here as in the other one, but that was mostly because this place was pretty bleh. There were some lovely cats with their own personalities, but the place was just the one room and while the cats were all in excellent condition they didn't have as much room to roam about as I've seen in the other places I've been.

This guy is (I think) an Abyssinian, so had a kind of ruff around his/her neck.

She was asleep in the car bed when I arrived but I spotted her waking up and then my camera strap did the rest.

Beautiful green eyes! Then there were the sofa residents. The one on the left is a curl eared cat and there was a note saying he was the friendliest and most easy going of cats.

I swear he didn't move a muscle the whole time I was there although I did hear him purring when I stroked him for a few minutes. Japanese cats don't seem to purr as much as English ones. The one on the right was long haired and loved having his/her fur stroked all along her body. When she looked up to see why I'd stopped I found she also had lovely green eyes.

There were a number of other residents...this first one got up and walked across the room and I swear she/he was the same size as your average dog. Huge!

...but it just didn't compare to my preferred Nyafe Melange in Ebisu.

Cat Cafe Nanny

Now you're talking - this place was awesome.

One of my two criticisms is that it was on the 4th floor (3rd floor in english lingo) and there was no lift. Not exactly a killer but, you know. As soon as I walked in this little guy woke up and started waving his paws at me.

When I lent in to stroke him he started licking my fingers then wanted to play. He was one of three clearly quite young cats who were very sweet and playful, but then so were the older residents. I had an explore before settling down to play and this was one of the two upstairs rooms.

There were only two cats on this whole floor and the first was adorable, and very happy to be stroked.

Then the second meandered towards me. It was a tiny lion!

I know she's just had a summer haircut...but...it's a tiny lion! Again my camera strap proved irresistible.

Do you not just want to hug her and stroke her and call her Bert? Awesome.

Back downstairs, the young trio, two of which were definitely from the same litter, were at play.

They didn't stay still often, and I never managed to get all three of them in shot.

One of them decided something was hiding under my maxi skirt.

They were adorable and so playful! They reminded me of Nickerjac's little boy who is also highly energetic! Again, the camera strap was the attraction and one of the older cats, who was very beautiful but not keen on being stroked, joined in.

There were other residents:

Crazy sideburns:

Check out these eyebrows:

The little cats were clearly fully accepted by the older ones and loved cuddling up to them. These two were particularly snug.

As were these two:

The grey cat being used as a pillow was beautiful. She loved having her chest stroked and used her paws to hold my hand there.

She was so blissed out she was hanging half off the table. Hard to believe she was really comfortable! I spent most of my time sitting at the table she was laying on and stroking her and the little one.

The things that made this cafe my absolute favourite was the space, the daylight, the sleeping options for the cats and the attitude of the cats to me. Sometimes you get the feeling you are bothering the cats and that's a definite no-no. Here they were actually pleased to see me and wanted to interact, and when they'd had enough there were plenty of places for them to go off to.

I said at the start that I had two complaints and only gave one - my second is that they told me at the start when my 'hour' started but you know I never remember that kind of thing so I accidentally overstayed by 5 minutes but got charged for an extra 30 mins because that's the way the charging goes. My bad, but at Shirokane and Ebisu they give you your start time in your lanyard so no-memories like me can work out when they need to go.

Will I be coming back to Akihabara for cat action? Yes! But only to the second place. Cat Cafe Nanny is about 40 mins door to door whereas Nyafe Melange is about 15 mins walk to that still wins for convenience and, of course, for Bruiser...

...but when I fancy more of an excursion I'll be coming back here again.

Blythe Dolls in Tokyo

Have you heard of these dolls? They tend to be a bit like marmite - for non-british readers that means you either love or hate them. Here are just a few photos of Flickr of some. Lots more here.

Meanwhile on Etsy you can imagine all the accessories and actual dolls you can buy. I just saw a doll on there for £850. People take these things really seriously.

Personally I am not bothered by them. I can admire the artistry without wanting to get involved. That doesn't mean I wasn't intrigued though when I saw giant ones in a shop window in central Tokyo.

They were there to advertise Bottega Veneta handbags so the only items of relevance to the advertising part of this were the bags the dolls are holding.

As a spectacle though, you'd have to agree it is very eye catching.

There were a lot of excited, young, japanese women taking photos.

The shop was the Isetan in Shinjuku (the equivalent of London's Selfridges), the same one I mentioned in my last window display post. Meanwhile, in the slightly more downmarket Uniqlo, there were these:

These furry guys were in the middle of the shop with their own tie-in t-shirt display for a new film which was being trailed on the monitors.

Naturally I have no idea what the film is but if these guys are anything to go by it is possibly my kind of thing!