Cat cafes

Cats in temples and shrines

Cats in Shōfuku Temple, Fukuoka

Cats in cemeteries

I counted around 50 cats over 3 days in Nagasaki. Hillside cemeteries were perhaps their favorite haunt.

Nagasaki’s terraces reminded me of hill towns in the Apennines of Central Italy.

Cats in Hell

Buddhist Hell is Jigoku (地獄), and the same word is used for fumaroles (geothermal vents). Unzen Jigoku is therefore a geothermal field in the hot springs resort town of Unzen, on the Shimabara Peninsula in Nagasaki Prefecture, Kyūshū.

The cats were just chilling in the heat. I wondered whether the smell of sulfur bothered them, at least at first.

They were fed by a man who appeared to be the caretaker of the field.

Cats in general

Dogs

Miscellaneous land and sea animals

For some photos of Japanese macaques, see the short Kyōto hike on the Hiking in Japan page.

Birds