Okay, it should be Friday–actually, it was Friday, in the U.S., when I took these photos–but the kittens didn’t present themselves until this afternoon. It’s not certain if the cats are noraneko (strays) or kept pets, as there are some local strays. One of them had a collar, which read just “Chibi” (“runt”), and they were approachable, so it’s likely they’re pets (even though the housing project forbids pets–a rule many ignore).

When I first saw them, I saw a group of kids admiring them, so naturally, the cats had retreated to the undercarriage of the closest car. But after the kids left, I was able to approach them and pet them for a little. They weren’t overly friendly, but they didn’t scatter if you approached slowly enough, something unusual in Japan, even for pet cats.

All photos except the close-up of the black kitten can be enlarged if you click on them.

There is one down point to having the kittens around: they love my scooter seat. There are several scooters that park in the bike port, some with larger and softer seats, but the cats always leave the most paw prints on mine, for some reason. The night before I took these photos, there was a big storm, so the bike seat was a lot muddier than it usually might be. The paw prints were even all over the bike’s dash, which was strange, as it it small, smooth, and angled, not easy to stand on even for a cat, I’d guess.

A bit of unrelated cat language trivia: in the U.S., when we want to say that a space is small, we might use the expression “not enough room to swing a cat.” In Japan, the expression “neko no hitai” is used; literally, it means, “[as small as] a cat’s forehead.”