They're all coming! Oh my god
This is heaven!
Hey guys! Guess where we are right now~
Well first of all, let me introduce who I'm with
Chris (Abroad in Japan)
Jun and Rachel
And we are headed to, the best place in Japan!
CAT ISLAND
And we're on the boat, we just made the boat
Go watch my vlog videos on my 2nd channel
if you wanna see our whole adventure getting here
But yeah! We're headed to Cat Island!
I've wanted to go here for probably 2 years now
I think I first heard about it 2 years ago
and I think it's gonna be amazing
The weather is perfect, so we are really lucky
Oh my god we're almost there!
Is this it?
I think so yeah
Oh!
We're there we're there we're there we're there
Almost.
5 minutes!
I'm just picturing the cats to come swarming to us
as soon as we get off the boat
I really hope that happens
Let's just come out with handfuls of food
We have taped it to our clothing!
We're here!! Look at this place, it's gorgeous!!
Alright guys, it's time to go find some cats, where are the cats!?
I don't see any cats yet
Heh, it's a lie!
It's all a publicity stunt
They call it Cat Island to lure us here
But actually, there aren't any!
But there were!
Tashirojima (Cat Island) is located in the Pacific Ocean
Off the coast of Ishinomaki City in Miyagi Prefecture
Tashirojima is inhabited by more cats than humans
Which is where it gets it's nickname of Cat Island
There are less than 100 people living on the island
But there are several hundred cats
In order to get to Tashirojima you need to take a 1 hour long ferry ride
which you can board from Ishinomaki
The boat will stop at both of the island's settled areas
A tiny village near the North, and a more developed village in the South
We decided to get off at the stop in the South
We are venturing deeper into the island now
in search of more cats
We already saw 3, yay!
Wowww
Awww
He's so friendly
OMG YES FOOD PLZ
What a cutie
It's the good stuff, it's not the cheap stuff
Aww
It's my favourite one
Ahh they're all coming, they're all coming! OMG
This place is heaven, I'm never going home
FUN FACT: Nobody owns a dog on Cat Island
In order to protect the cats it's actually not allowed to bring a dog onto the island at all
It's probably his first cat toy ever
Aww they're so happy~
Oh my god that grey one is so cute!
Aww I wanna bring him home~
There is one store on the island
where you can buy drinks and snacks
But surprisingly they didn't have a very good selection of cat food
So if you would like to feed the cats
I recommend bringing your own food and snacks for them
just in case there isn't any you can buy in the store
My recommendation would be to bring some cans of wet food
Or some bottles of water and bowls you can give them the water in
We saw a few people feeding them dry food
But we didn't really see any bowls of water anywhere
So I was kinda worried that the cats were dehydrated
So that would probably be a really good idea
This is paradise
It's a chocolate cat!
The tsunami is 2011 partially flooded Tashirojima
and both the villages had several buildings that were destroyed
Luckily, the island is located behind a peninsula
which helped protect it from more severe damage
We are now in search of the Cat Shrine
Which Chris has been telling us stories about
Tell us the background story Chris, with your best accent!
So it's said...
About 100 years ago, this island had a thriving textiles industry
And then, shit went down.
There were load of rats, and they were eating all the textiles
I can't remember what it was, silk or cotton or something?
All the rats were eating it
So they were like, I know what we can do! CATS!
So, they brought the cats along
The cats killed and ate all the rats
And they saved the economy of the island!
So to thank the cats, they made a Cat Shrine
And lived happily ever after, the end.
And now we're looking for that shrine...
This Cat Shrine is located at the centre of the island between the 2 ports
So if you get off at either one, and venture in towards the middle of the island
You should be able to find it
It was a good half-hour walk to reach the shrine
And it was really hot, there wasn't much shade around
So definitely bring enough liquids!
We found the shrine!
We made it to the Cat Shrine and this cat is so happy to see us
FINALLY PEOPLE
Hey~
DID YOU BRING FOOD?
We brought food!
ANYTHING GOOD?
Hey~
HURRY UP LADY
He's so happy, he's like "No one ever makes it all the way up here!"
This is pretty awesome
Look at all the... Oh my god there's cat toys!
That's so cute!
This shrine was built in dedication to a cat that was accidentally killed by a falling rock
After visiting the Cat Shrine, we decided to head out to the North side of the island
to see if there were any more cats to find over there
There weren't as many cats as there were over on the South side
But the cats that were there, all came flocking towards us
and they all looked really happy to see us
So if you get a chance, definitely go visit them
So far we have seen more cats than people, definitely
How many people have we seen so far? Maybe...
6?
Yeah, maybe 10 at the most
Lots of them were tourists, at least half of them were tourists
And we've probably seen at least 30 cats
I would say. Probably about 30 cats.
So that's awesome!
Obviously we came to Tashirojima for the cats
But look at this view! We had a wonderful time
just relaxing down by the water here
It's a really gorgeous place
As you're exploring the island
You'll probably notice that there aren't any restaurants around
But after a quick Google search
we discovered that there is one
And we head off to find it!
Aww there's a cat coming to welcome us!
And Chris terrifies it.
It flees into the bushes
So we have discovered probably the only place to eat on the island
It's a house actually, it's someone's home and they have a little cafe
And it looks like there's only one thing on the menu
Probably each day they change it
Today is... Octopus Tomato Sauce Pasta
It was nice to be able to just come in and wash our hands
And use the washroom, they have a really nice washroom here
So if you're looking for somewhere to do that this is probably the only place on the island
Otherwise you'd have to use an outhouse, those were the only other washrooms that we saw
He's following us home!
Aww what a cutie
It's time to get back on the boat and go home :(
I don't wanna leave, this place is really nice
We're on the ferry now
Which is really sad :( Are you sad Chris?
Chris is so sad
There'll be tears in a minute
Seriously this place was so nice, it was gorgeous!
Really, really relaxing
And the cats were so cute!! They were so friendly!
It's so rare to find stray cats that are friendly in Japan
that will like, come up to you! They were so cute
Shrine cat was the best!
And that pretty grey cat with the long hair that kinda looked like Maro
Those 2 were my favourite
I will put all the information about Cat Island down in the description box
Check that if you're interested in coming here
It cost 2500 yen for the boat ride here and back, both ways
Yeah, it's not too bad
You can get lunch on the island for 800 yen
We are heading back to Sendai now, to continue our road trip
So check out the videos on Rachel and Chris' channels
And look forward to more from me too!
Bye!!