Gotokuji...The cat shrine! (6/2/17)

As much as they might pain us sometimes, I love my cats. Even if Robyn does keep us up at night by clambering on the shelves, jumping for the door handle and batting stuff off of the drawers. For the first few months after Ollie and I got together it was exclusively my stuff she batted off, and you can be sure it was no accident. Every time she would look me dead in the eye as if to say "This is what I think of you, newcomer. Why don't you make like this nail varnish and disappear." Cats can be little bitches when they want to be. Over time we bonded and now if I ask her if she wants to look out of the window she'll come running over and allow me to hold her up to the window so she can look at the seagulls. It's a love-hate relationship. Caboose on the other hand is too lazy and pretty for his own good. His only real crimes are hacking up enormous hairballs and setting new records for the amount of time it takes him to lose a new collar. He also likes to bring in the occasional mouse.

Robyn the ginger home wrecker.

Lazy ass Caboose. He puts up with a lot and the most you'll get back is a confused stare.

We'd be lost without our cats, and at this point we're starting to miss them. Which is why our last stop in Tokyo was Gotokuji or as it's more affectionately known...home of the beckoning lucky cat! 

Whilst we sometimes lamented the distance of our apartment from the main city, today it worked in our favour, as Gotokuji was less than a five minute walk away. We had to be out of the apartment by 10, so to give ourselves plenty of time we were out of the door by half 7. It was sunny again and we crossed the tram line and followed the signs.

We saw a pagoda not so far away and headed towards it. For a moment we were confused. It was a lovely looking shrine but weren't there supposed to be a metric butt tonne of little cats?

We meandered around the complex and then went up to the main shrine. There, nestled in a cove next to the main shrine...we found them.

Spot the neko.

SO MANY NEKO! And Ollie.

The cats surround a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy.

One even has a tiny eye patch.

The story goes that in the Edo period, the chief priest at the temple had a cat who he cared for very much, but the temple was not a wealthy one. One night a feudal lord passed with his servants hoping to make it to another settlement before resting for the night. The priests cat met the lord on the road and raised its paw as if to beckon and welcome the lord inside the temple. The lord, curious and charmed by its behaviour, followed the cat into the temple and asked the priest if he could shelter there. As he priest offered them tea and a sermon a great thunderstorm broke outside which the party would have been caught in had they not followed the cat inside the temple. Grateful to the priest and the cat the lord donated rice crops and land to the temple, raising it to prosperity. The maneki neko (beckoning cat) became a symbol of luck and prosperity and so they are offered at this shrine by those hoping to improve their business prospects and make their fortunes. 

I'd love to say how many cats there were but honestly I could guess a few thousand and still be way off. They ranged from huge palm sized cats to tiny thumbnail sized ones, and everywhere we looked there was a cat nestled into every available nook and cranny. Whether it was because we were so early or because it was only February we were entirely alone in the temple complex and so took our time exploring. We couldn't leave without taking home our own maneki neko from the temple it originated in, and so went over to the temple shop which was...closed. We were momentarily gutted until we found a timetable and saw we only had half an hour to wait until it opened. It was surprisingly warm and I wanted to rest my back so we found a bench and sat for half an hour in the sun. The shop opened and we chose a small cat which wouldn't take up too much room in my bag. We also go another one to leave at the temple. Of course we wished for wealth and prosperity (a wish which has still not borne fruit over a year later. Perhaps we should have bought a bigger cat) but we also said a prayer for our own cats. 

They might be assholes, but they're our assholes. And we miss them.