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!!