Maneki Neko Madness

For Nicci, one of the most exciting parts of Japan was to indulge one of her favorite past-times: collecting Maneki Nekos, or waving kitties. Possibly her most important goal in visiting Japan was to grow her collection, which started out looking like this:

Japan certainly did not let her down. There were waving kitties for sale everywhere!

They were even in advertisements and posters:

We also saw some very interesting maneki neko on display in restaurants:

As an exciting bonus, we even happened upon some real (but not waving!) kitties in Osaka:

But this story is about waving kitties and Nicci's collection. She managed to collect 6 in all, and at least one in each city we visited: Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Look how happy she was collecting them:

Look at how pretty they look in her new, expanded collection!!