JAPAN – Enter the cat cafes

MILAN -. For a small fee, $8 – $12 an hour, you can gain entrance in Japan to a cathouse. Anywhere from a dozen to twenty cats, some even pedigreed, roam free in a very casual setting, designed more for their comfort than that of the paying patrons.

This is proven by rules–like no young children, no shoes, no flash photography, no disturbing sleeping cats— and the many empty boxes, cushions, and toys that lay strewn about.

Coffee, tea, smoothies (and in one case, “Mexican jambalaya”) are among refreshments for sale, but it’s obvious that people are there for the cats.

Some cafes have a guest book in which customers have drawn pictures of and written messages to the cats. Also, if you take a fancy to a particular cat, you can find out its age, name and breed in the laminated “menu.”

The Nyankoro Café has even a website at which each cat has it’s own page. (It’s in Japanese, but it’s still worth a little poke around.)