On Friday we headed down to Wakayama area to visit Kishi Station, where Tama the cat is the Station Master . Yes, a cat is the station master (was, RIP lil buddy). The line was almost shut down and to cut costs the railway company made local people the station managers. Tama was a stray cat adopted by the man who was chosen to manage Kishi Station, and she became the station master. Lots of people went to visit Tama so she was made Super Station Master due to the massive increase in revenue. A new station was built which is designed to look like a cat, and as Tama is getting older now, she has an apprentice called Nitama who works at another small station down the line. They were both super cute and we also got photos with a Tama mascot.

We caught the Tama Densha (a cat themed train) halfway back to visit Nitama.
While we were waiting for the train back at the smaller station a guy selling sweets told us to visit a local shrine, which was really pretty. They had animals carved out of logs of wood and a tree you can crawl through to get rid of bad health. We bought some sweets from the man and he gave us an extra little sweet treat for free, he was really nice and spoke really good English.
The area was quite rural, lots of fruit trees and rice paddies, lovely!

Kishi Station is designed to look like a cat!

Tama was taking a nap – it’s hard work running a station!

The cat themed train running between Nishi and Wakayama Stations.

So kawaii!

Cat themes inside too – plus lovely views outside.