Cat Café MOFF Yodobashi Akiba in Tokyo, Japan

Last year we had a brilliant visit to a cat café in Seoul, and so on our trip to Japan this summer we knew that we definitely wanted to visit another.

This was our first visit to Japan, and there weren't as many cat cafés around as I was expecting. I think that animal welfare regulations have been tightened over the last few years, and many businesses have closed. We chose to visit the Cat Café MOFF Yodobashi Akiba which is part of a chain of cat cafés. It's situated inside the Yodobashi Camera store in Akiba, which is also a great place to visit as well as being somewhere for people that aren't as interested in the cats to spend some time browsing!

The café has large windows which look out onto the street, so you can have a look inside before visiting to check how busy it is and to get a sense of what it's like inside. To spend time in the cafe cost us 2000 yen each for an hour, with additional 10 minutes charged at 250 yen thereafter. There are a couple of vending machines supplying unlimited hot and cold drinks, and you can pay a little extra to buy treats to feed the cats. No reservation was necessary, and it's easy to reach by public transport.

We visited late afternoon which was the perfect time. We arrived just before feeding time, and then after that the space emptied out quickly, with only a few people remaining when it was time for us to leave. Feeding time was really sweet, all the cats lined up in front of their food bowls and they were introduced in turn.

There was a really friendly lady working there who interacted with both guests and cats, telling people about them by using a speaking translator app which worked really well. She clearly loved all the cats. We bought some cat treats and jelly to feed to the cats which was really fun. Everyone was respectful to the cats, no one was chasing them around or bothering them. If they wanted to keep out of the way there were plenty of places for them to retreat where they could remain undisturbed.

If you just sat down quietly then a cat would often approach which was lovely! It was a really calm and peaceful atmosphere. Each table had a handy identification guide with pictures of the cats and their names, and they were all pretty cats from a range of different breeds. We were given stickers so that we could vote for our favourite cat on a wall chart but I felt that was a bit unfair so I put my sticker by the cat that had the fewest votes!

Many of the cats were happy to just sit in a basket while you sat quietly stroked them. We stayed for an hour and it passed so quickly - we could have stayed all day! If you love cats and have the chance to visit a cat café I would definitely recommend it, just make sure to check out a few recent reviews first.

If you are interested in a visit, you can find more information here - Cat Café MOFF Yodobashi Akiba

And if cats aren't your thing, we also saw advertisements in Tokyo for several capybara cafés, puppy cafés, a hedgehog café and an exotic animal café featuring kangaroos and snakes!

World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle, Kittens edition - Solving tips

The World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle series was released in the 90s, and as a huge cat fan and lover of jigsaw puzzles I was given this Kittens Edition puzzle when I was a teenager. I'm not usually one to choose very difficult puzzles, but I couldn't resist the image on this one, and I remember solving it without too much difficulty. 

I was able to solve it because I realised that there is a bit of a trick to completing it, and it's not nearly as difficult as it is made out to be. So today I thought I'd share how I completed this vintage puzzle, to show that it's not as daunting as it looks!

Why so difficult?

This 529 puzzle is double sided, depicting the same artwork on both sides, rotated 90° with respect to each other. The puzzle is then die cut once from each side so top and bottom are identical!

Why is it not so difficult?

All the pieces are the same shape and size, and they fit in a regular pattern. The cats are distinctive, with different shades, eye colours and patterns. There aren't really that many pieces, and if you have a decent sized table or puzzle board you can lay them out all at once for a clear view. If you spend time sorting the pieces using the method that I'll explain below then once you come to the assembly you are familiar with the pieces and you can put it together pretty easily. Also the description of the rotation is misleading, as that's not quite what is going on.

How to solve the World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle

The way this puzzle works is that the reverse side image is reflected along the diagonal, which runs from the bottom left to the top right corners. My son has better spatial awareness skills than me and helped me to understand, I still don't really get it but you just have to imagine a diagonal line running across it - I've included a photo lower down to illustrate it!

Start with the edges

There aren't many edge pieces. As you look through the puzzle pieces, you will notice that the majority of the pieces can be put together in pairs with an identical albeit rotated part of the image on each side.

This is the key to solving the puzzle. 

So sort out the edge pieces, then group them into their pairs. You will be left with two corner pieces which each have the same image section rotated, and two corner pieces which pair together. You need to find all the edge pieces before you can start putting them together.

Pick out one of the corner pieces that has the same image rotated front and back. In this puzzle, they will be the bottom left and top right pieces. Place the piece down, and this first piece will determine the top side of the puzzle. 

Then take all the edge pieces and separate them into their pairs. Turn one of the pieces over to show the reverse image. Keep the pairs clearly together! Now you have all the parts of the image laid out, so you can put together the edge. Start from the corner, and choose the piece from the pair that fits on one side. If it doesn't fit then use the other piece. Then the remaining piece will go the opposite side of the corner piece. It shouldn't take too long to put the edge together!

Sort the remaining pieces

I won't lie - this is a big job. But it's absolutely worth doing! You need to got through all the remaining pieces, and sort them into their pairs. Don't worry about which way up they are, just make lots of little piles of two pieces. The image on each will have the same orientation.

Not all the pieces have a pair. The pieces that run along the centre diagonal from bottom left to top right, in this puzzle nineteen pieces, will have the same part of the image on both sides, but rotated. Keep these to one side, but don't forget about them when assembling! You can place them down the middle if you like, but you won't know which way up they go until you place pieces around them.

Tips for sorting the pieces into their pairs

* When looking for pairs, remember that because the pieces are double sided, the match that you are looking for might be face down.

* Look for distinctive pieces, for example those that are all one colour or in the case of this puzzle the eyes are a good place to start.

* If you can't find a match for the piece that you are holding, turn it over and hunt for the reverse image.

* Group all the pieces with one dominant colour, and when you've established that they don't pair with each other then turn them over and look for the other side.

* Because the pieces are all the same shape you can orient them all the same way which makes it easier to find a match.

* Many pieces can be placed the correct way up because of the cat's face or ears, which helps when finding a match.

Ready for the final assembly!

That's the worst bit over with!

Take all your pairs, and like before place them together and turn one of the pieces over so that all the parts of the image are visible. Keep the pairs together! Ideally you will have enough space in your puzzle area to lay out every piece clearly.

From your pairs, one of the pieces will go one way up and one the other, but you don't know yet which is which. So I find it easiest to start from the edges. Once you have placed one piece, you know that the other piece in the pair will fit in the corresponding place on the reverse side. If the piece doesn't fit then you know that you need to use the other one from the pair. You can see the reflection in this picture:

I've tried to explain it more clearly by placing a line across the board showing where the image is reflected in the photographs below. You can see how the irregular groups of pieces that I have already placed at this point are reflected across to the other side of the puzzle. It took me a while to work this out, and even when I knew how the reflection worked I still found it tricky to work out where to put the second piece - often I had to flip the next piece over to see where to put it! You just know that if you've connected the first piece to an existing piece then the second piece will fit somewhere!

Once you've got going, you have lots of places that you can work off and it's not so difficult to spot the pieces that you need. Keep all the pieces oriented the same way to make finding them easier, and as I keep saying, don't muddle up the pairs!

Completed puzzle

All the pre-sorting really does pay off, and completing the puzzle shouldn't be too difficult. I really love this puzzle, it's a vintage reminder of childhood and I've done it lots of times now so it's easier each time as I remember all the different little cat faces.

Other puzzles in the series

There were lots of other puzzles that were a part of this series. I saw one in a charity shop not that long ago which was a repetitive pile of sweets, and decided that it wasn't for me as I was looking for easier puzzles at the time. There was a Baked Beans one too I'm sure. They do pop up quite often on eBay so they are still around in cupboards all over the country - If I spot another on my charity shop trails in the future I'll probably pick it up, just so I can see if it's solved in the same way!

Visiting the Myeondong Cat Playground cat café in Seoul

Somewhere my children were desperate to visit in Seoul was a Cat Café. I was hesitant, mainly because my son has a mild cat allergy, but he was fully prepared to accept the consequences in exchange for the experience, and fortunately he was fine!

There are several cat cafés in the Myeondong area of Seoul where we were staying, but it was difficult to find out information online. In the end I chose the Myeondong Cat Playground because it was close by, had a reasonable fixed fee for entrance that included a drink, and you could stay as long as you wanted. It wasn't possible to make advance reservations, so we did have to wait for a short while to get in.

On arrival you need to swap your outdoor shoes for a pair of plastic sandals, and you are provided with a plastic sack to keep your belongings safe from the cats. There was a good selection of hot and cold drinks included in the entry price and you could buy more as you needed them as well as cat food. 

In the centre of the room was a tower structure with dozing cats, there was a heated floor area to sit and hope that a cat might want to sit on your knee, all the tables were provided with a basket and often a sleeping cat, and the cats also roamed around freely.

You aren't allowed to pick up the cats, and some of the cats were wearing a blue collar which means that they may get grumpy if you play with them too much. The cats all seemed really happy and well cared for, and they were all beautiful breeds, including a hairless cat.

I didn't like to disturb them too much but they honestly didn't seem to be bothered by the attention (and I know that a cat would make it pretty clear if they were fed up of being bothered!) There were plenty of hidden places that the cats could escape to if they needed a break, and they could rest high up and out of reach.

Our table had a basket but no cat, so we were delighted about halfway through our visit when a lovely cat jumped up on the table and came to visit! After some stroking and photographing the cat ended up settling down for a nap.

The café was beautifully clean with no cat hair in sight. It looked a little hectic at first when we were waiting to go inside, but once we were settled at our table it felt much calmer, and people were generally very respectful of the cats. It was a really relaxing space to sit with a drink, especially if you are lucky enough to end up with a sleeping cat on your table!

I would love to have a cat of my own but it's not practical for us, and probably not a good idea with an allergy in the family. So the cat café was a great place to hang out with some cats for a little while, and if we ever find ourselves in a part of the world with a cat café again I'd love to visit another!