Instead of a welcoming hello all I heard were meows. The Cat Café located in Tokyo is located on the second floor of a three story building. I expected to see the hello kitties located on the first floor peeping out the window and scratching at it with their paws. As much as I thought this would be a main tourist location because it's a centralized location, but I mostly noticed what seemed to look like locals.
After assuming these locations are a primary tourist attraction, I shortly realized that this was more of a place for local people to come and relax. There was no coffee or snacks to buy like I expected, instead it was just a timed fee to just play with kitties. I expected cats to be crawling all over me while I drank coffee, and I think that’s what others expected as well.
The kitties were did not have a “kittenality” like I expected. These kitties acted like they had never seen people or other kitties for that matter. Maybe the kitties are tired of being played with, and where do these cats come from? I found myself asking a lot of questions because there simply was no information give about this particular business.
Cat Cafes are located all around Japan, being a main location for tourists to visit, at least that’s how the internet makes it seem. This business was clean as they gave us sandals to wear and sanitizer on our way out, but did they do enough for me to ever want to go to a Cat Café again? They did give treats to the kitties while I was there but that just made the kitties focus on the treats instead of me-as if this wasn’t a problem from the start. So it’s clear that the Japanese people love their kitties, but do they love their tourists?
