Up REALLY REALLY FAR TOO EARLY OH MY GOD IT CAN'T BE TIME TO GET UP ALREADY I'M GOING TO DIE IT'S SO EARLY to catch the train to Tashirojima in the pursuit of seeing many cats. Would we? Who knows. There was always the possibility we’d go all that way and see 1 cat – but faint heart and all that…

Brisk, and due to the time, slightly groggy march to the main train station so we could catch the 7:24am train. So we were there before 7am.

Because it’s us. Of course we were.

Anyway, if you miss this first train the timings for the day go to hell in a handcart. Like I said yesterday, if you want to go, set your alarm!

Quick rekky to make sure we could find the right platform and then the purchase of much needed coffee. And some Nigiri and drinks for later just in case there wasn’t anything available on the island. Some blogs make it out like it’s a large rock with some cats and about two people which is a bit overblown. From later experience, there are a few cafés and places to eat but I suppose it’s not a bad idea to take a packed lunch just in case.

Back down to sit on the train, wait, and have intravenous coffee. After that it’s about an hour journey to Ishinomaki station which is the end of the line so there might have been a few small snoozettes on the way through the countryside. Lots of nice views though so we did try to fight off the sandman.

Rocked up at Ishinomaki dead on time (what else!) and then went to find a taxi to take us to the ferry port. Needn’t have worried though – the taxi drivers obviously know that the morning train brings the cat lovers and it’s too far to walk if you want to make the ferry so there was a long line to choose from. And they didn’t even really need to ask where we were going although I did trot out my best effort in Japanese. You have to play the game eh?

10 minutes and a little over ¥1000 (about £8) later and we were at the ferry terminal which consists of one medium sized building from which you can buy your tickets. At about ¥2500 (about £20) each for a round trip it’s a bargain. Tickets clutched in our sticky mits we were soon on board the ferry and ready to…well wait really. Everything had gone a lot more smoothly than we expected and there’s a fair amount of wiggle room built in to the scheduling so we sat about watching the "Black Cat" Yamato crew loading and unloading ready for the journey.

20 minutes later and we were off. The journey takes around 45 minutes and after the first ten there’s not a lot to see until you get near the island itself. Much posing about for “Tracey the Sea Captain” photos and taking panoramas from the back of the boat. Also much checking and rechecking of the timetable and the map of the island that we’d been given at the ticket centre. Basically the Blue Liner (ブルーライナー) we were on does the run into the island twice a day and stays there overnight. The Mermaid (マーメイド) only does it once and it skips the first port on the island, Odomari. So if you miss the first ferry out you can’t go until 12, you’ll only get 2.5 hours on the island and you’ll have to walk the entire length of it twice to see everything. And if you miss the last ferry at 15:33…you’re bedding down with the cats overnight. (Actually I’m sure there would be a solution to finding shelter for the night if you were desperate as the island isn’t uninhabited and there are a couple of B&Bs. But I wouldn’t want to chance it). Again, set an alarm!

After a nice calm crossing, Tashirojma itself appeared on the horizon and we were soon pulling into Odomari port. It seemed like getting off here was the best plan as we could then take our time wombling over the island to Nitoda and if we missed the 14:12 sailing back we’d at least be in the right place to catch the final ferry later.

Off we got, along with a few other couples, rather nervous that we’d struggle to see the cats. Nope. No chance of that!

Within a couple of minutes we were approached by a tabby and a black and white cat and soon we were surrounded by a swarm of them. Yes I know a group of cats is a “Clowder” but no-one says that. Cats aren’t daft – they know when there’s a meal going. Of course we’d bought cat food – we’d raided the local Don Quijote last night on the way back to the hotel and picked up a lot of tubes of dry food. And to be honest there’s nowhere to buy cat food at Odomari, or at least we didn’t see anywhere. (We found a small store later near Nitoda but as I said, it seems to make more sense getting off before that and actually it didn’t look open).

Cards on the table here - yes we fed the cats. Yes there are signs saying not to feed the cats as it’s bad for them to be overfed. Which were ignored by every single person we saw. I know I know – if they jumped off a cliff etc. But all the tourists are here to see cats. The cats are (mostly) feral. Tourists are therefore going to bring food and they are going to feed the cats. Not sure what the solution is to be honest. The one thing that did seem to have a solution though was not to feed them on the road as the signs say that the cats are losing their road sense, sitting in the road waiting for food, and getting injured by cars. Ok – so not in the road then. But otherwise, sorry folks – this is happening. And in the winter there won’t be many/any tourists; there weren’t that many when we were there in mid-October so…

..ok, I am trying to justify really poor tourist behaviour and ignoring the local requests. Normally we do exactly what we are told. We didn’t here. Not exactly on the scale of Logan Paul's inexcusable behaviour but we still felt guilty. A bit.

Moving on…

We spent about half an hour at Odomari playing with the kitties and all the ones we saw  looked to be in good condition, discounting the odd tail that had obviously come off worst in a fight at one point in their past. Then we said goodbye and started up the path that leads across the island towards the Cat Shrine. It’s about a 20 minute walk up a gentle incline so compared to yesterday’s trek this was easy stuff!

The shrine is signposted in Japanese but there’s only one fork in the path and even if you don’t read Kanji you’ll probably have learned “Cat” (猫) by now and you see Shrine (神社) everywhere so you can work out fairly easily which way to go. Just in case you can’t, it’s the right fork - the left one goes directly to Nitoda (仁斗田) port.

A couple of minutes later and we found the shrine. You can’t exactly mistake it – it’s bright red and is surrounded by cat sculptures, models, rocks, messages and similar. And there was a cat. Which was nice. So we said hello. As you do.

After this we thought we’d head up the road to the place billed as Island Station (島のえき) on the map. Might have make another feline friend or two on the way.

Island Station is actually a café and shop right next to a helipad. Makes sense – if there’s an emergency, three ferries a day aren’t really going to cut it. We bought coffee and curry rice from the couple who run the place and who obviously help look after the immediate area’s cat colony. And there were lots of them – again they know when they are onto a good thing. There were a mix of adult cats and quite a few kittens (there’s a Trap-Neuter-Release program but it can’t get them all) and with one exception again they looked to be in good health. One poor cat did have an eye infection which I’d like to think would get treated eventually (I’d like to think it..) but it hadn’t spoilt his appetite!

Later Note: May 2019

Sometimes, just sometimes, social media is actually worth all the grief. I've finally found a use for Twitter!

When we went to Tashirojima last year, this was the only cat with any obvious signs of illness that we saw all day. It's bothered me ever since - what happened to him/her? Well...

A graduate student from a Japanese University contacted us a few weeks ago through this site and asked about our time on the island. After she read my reply she told us about the NGO https://www.nyanpro.com that looks after the place (which I didn't know about) and they have a Twitter account. https://twitter.com/nyanpro

I asked them if they knew this cat and what had become of him/her...and I got a reply within hours! Her name is Maa Chan, she's fine and is currently raising her kittens 

Occasionally I genuinely love technology!

Also had to play tug-of-war with one determined black and white moggie who was not backing down from my coffee creamer. He won. 

Sat for about an hour and a half here since there were a) cats b) coffee c) shelter from the rain which had finally decided enough was enough and dumped itself down after threatening all morning. Still, got another photo for Uisuki and Daiou’s album while we were waiting.

If I was a cat on the island I’d probably try to live here. The cats have got some shelter provided and the café owners feed them; a process which was a lot more civilised than I’d have expected from pure feral cats. Maybe semi-feral then…

Once the rain broke we said our goodbyes to the cats and “thank yous” to the owners and headed back onto the path that would take us to Nitoda. Again, made a few new acquaintances along the way, including one from a house that wasn’t impressed with the invasion of its territory, and a heavily pregnant lady who was a bit wary but gratefully took all the food we gave her.

Followed the path all the way to what we thought was the port but wasn’t. Hmm.

Bit of fruitless wandering about before luckily we met a resident and asked directions. As it turns out we weren’t far off as the crow flies. But, not being especially avian, we had quite a few back alleys to negotiate before we go to the port proper. You can see where the sea level got to during the Tsumani of 2011. It’s amazing that no-one was killed on Tashirojima – perhaps the cats really did protect the island after all.

The port itself is a working fishing port so it was fairly quiet by the time we got there. Quite a few cats though; where there’s fish…

We were befriended quickly by a black and white cat who didn’t look like it had missed many meals and a tabby who looked a bit thin and hungry. Of course I’d have adopted her (Tracey is positive it was a “her”) if you could. But you can’t. You can give her a good meal though, even if that just fills her belly for a day.

Shortly after saying a sad goodbye to her, Tracey spotted two little faces peering out from under a tank. We were worried they’d been abandoned but a few seconds later mum showed up and so we used up most of the cat food we had left making sure this little family (including the shyer one who’d been hiding at first) got a meal. They didn’t look in bad shape but they were only little so best to make sure.

Bit more wombling and a few more new friends before the Blue Liner appeared, so we gave away the rest of our food, boarded the ferry and headed back to the mainland.

Won’t lie – it does feel a little exploitative just rocking up, feeding the cats and disappearing again. To be honest though there’s not that many opportunities at present to spend money if you wanted to as there are only a few cafés and the B&Bs aren’t easy to book; we’d have spent the night if we’d been confident of booking a room. In high season though it must at least bring some income onto the island even if it’s just cat food and lunch. Let’s hope that the declining human population at least stabilises for the sake of the kitties.

Anyway, back on the mainland we picked up another taxi back to the station, making record time via a magic back route our driver Takahashi San obviously knew. I can’t read many Japanese names but that’s one I can, so that raised a smile when I said thank you. Little wins.

Checking with a station attendant we’d just made it in time for the next train back to Sendai so a couple of hours later we were back at the hotel for a good old lie down, a shower and then packing for tomorrow’s departure.

Suitably refreshed and squared away we decided to make it 3 for 3 and go back to Gyouza King. Why stop just when you’re enjoying it? And anyway we’d spent so much over the past couple of days that we had been given vouchers so they needed to be spent. 500 Yen off and a free sheet of Gyouza? Don’t mind if we do!

Gyouza King was absolutely heaving when we got there (it was Saturday night after all) but we managed to get seated after not too long a wait. The young waitress went at everything at full speed and didn’t stop at all from the time we got in. She must have been knackered - we were tired just watching her. When we paid the bill I did ask her if she was tired but she just laughed, shook her head, showed me her guns and said “強い!” (Strong!). She wasn't joking - I’d have been destroyed after ten minutes!

So, that’s the last night in Sendai done (there were a few snacks and more sake back at the hotel but that’s a given by now). Really impressed with the place and I’d recommend it to anyone. Since it’s only a few hours up the line from Tokyo it should absolutely be on more tourist’s itineraries.

Tomorrow we go up the line a bit more to Morioka and one of the wild cards on this trip – Hotel Shion. Not sure what to expect so fingers crossed eh?