Where is the festival?

The Plan

• 9/18 – Neko Matsuri
  • THERE IS A CAT FESTIVAL!!!
    • Cat themed items, cat themed foods, etc etc.
  • Meeting up with a friend to hang out. He and I played Grand Archive in Houston and he’s gonna be in Tokyo around the same time as me so it should be fun

The Reality

• 9/18 – Neko Matsuri
  • THERE IS A CAT FESTIVAL ON SUNDAY WHILE IM NOT IN TOKYO
  • Went to my first shrine, paid some respects
    • Bought a fortune, it was a good one!
  • Met up with a stranger from Reddit (Sam) had fun visiting shrines.
  • Sam and I met my friend Steven and his sister at a nearby Cat Cafe
    • Apparently this one was different than others. Much more interactive with the cats.
    • You could pat them, go over to them, etc.. It was a rescue shelter with a free drink.
    • The cats were great. Some of them weren’t trusting, but overall they were sweet.
      • It was so nice to pet a cat again. Big highlight. I love cats.
    • I got my passport to the Neko Republic and they had a constitution! It was cute.
  • Sam got me addicted to Rhythm games in the arcade
  • Steven and I went to go play cards. Great time!
    • Always nice seeing Koike and Ruy again. They’re coming to Singapore to play.
    • Koike thanked me for my advice on playing and fixing his deck with some MTG packs.
      • Wonderful dude. I’m excited to force him to do Karaoke with me in Singapore lmao.

Neko Republic

I first went to meet my friend Steven at the cat festival, but I checked the local temple and it looked they were still setting up for vendors. Turns out the real festival is Sunday.

I did visit a cat cafe and got to pet a lot of cats. I’m really thankful for that. They are always just so unapologetically themselves. That’s also something someone from the tour group said about why they enjoy sales. You can just do your own thing and everything is up to you as long as you hit your numbers. She’s in software sales for a product I’ve used the free tier of. I appreciated it at the time and moreso when it was echoed by my friend’s sentiment at the cat shelter. Big fan of cats. Have been since 3000 B.C..

The cat shelter had a little passport that you have to “apply for” by agreeing that you’ll be respectful and let sleeping cats lie, and not hit the cats with toys, etc.. Some of the cats were so energetic (the kittens especially!) and they were cute and fun. Some cats were uhhh, less than trusting because they’re rescues. I get it. Fool me once! Great times.

Get in the Gaming Oasis (GiGO)

After the cat cafe, we leaned on my friend who speaks pretty fluent Japanese to bring us to a local spot to get some Sakana-don (fish bowl). He kinda walked me through the steps of ordering. The food was great. It’s all raw, and I had Salmon roe, Tuna and Octopus. Octopus is really delicious when sliced thin.

Then, with the help of my newfound friend Sam, I have become addicted to rhythm games again lol. I played this game where you are sweeping across this piano and Sam had brought his own gloves. He didn’t put them on until we weren’t looking. But I told him that’s awesome. The game has a ton of songs I actually know, and it was cool to play. I also played this other game where you slide cards around on the screen. I have like 3 cards now to play with next time.

Someone brought their entire Kancolle Collection deck to play with. They’re cards you scan into the machine to use certain characters. I love the cards and scanning thing and have since I was a kid. It’s why I was into NFTs tbh. It’s actually really cool.

Back to EvoCafe

After that, we rushed back to EvoCafe because we thought they were having their store champs. I forgot my deck so I was just gonna go play one on loan or judge the event so the owner of the store could play. Turns out the event was Saturday lol. Second date screw-up in one day. Just kill me lol. So we played some free play, and I played vs some noobs and taught them some good combos, good tactics and how to play better using broken Japanese. I think they understood. I let them win one too 😉

Stayed there until 22:45 then bought a couple strong zeros and headed back to the hotel. Any train after 10pm is crowded as heck until you get out of the Shinjuku/Shibuya area and like 3 more stops from there.

I came back, started typing this and lo and behold, I turn on the TV and ONOSATO (大の里) is on there! (You may remember him as the famous sumo I was rooting for yesterday) What a cool thing. Serendipitous that I should see it.

That’s mostly the end of my itinerary. I am planning on seeing Kabuki matinee at 11am so I gotta run. After that, it’s taking the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto and then on to “open world sim” mode where I have no itinerary in Kyoto except meeting up with a friend from day 1.

Stay safe and healthy!