A close-up, slightly angled shot taken with a smartphone of a delicate watercolor painting of a cat resting in a sun-drenched temple garden, with a hint of traditional Japanese architecture in the background. The lighting is natural and soft, capturing the texture of the paper and paint. Shot from a low angle, as if peeking into a gallery
A candid, street-level photo captured on a smartphone, showing a narrow, traditional Japanese alleyway in Naramachi. Cat-themed illustrations are visible on shop signs and banners hanging from eaves. A few people are walking by, and the sunlight casts dappled shadows. The image has a slightly imperfect focus and natural color saturation
A top-down shot taken from a cafe window, showing a matcha latte with a meticulously crafted cat design in the foam. The background is slightly blurred, hinting at the traditional interior of the cafe. The photo feels spontaneous, capturing a moment of quiet observation and appreciation for small details

The cat festival I didn't know I needed

There's something about wandering into an event you had no idea was happening. This morning, walking through Naramachi – the old merchant district south of Nara Park – I kept noticing cat illustrations everywhere. Not just the occasional shop sign, but paintings in windows, sculptures on doorsteps, fabric banners hanging from eaves.

Turns out today is the start of the Nyaramachi Neko Art Festival. The whole month of June, apparently, but today is opening day. The neighborhood has transformed into this celebration of cats and cat-inspired art, and I stumbled into it completely by accident.

I'd planned to visit Kasuga Taisha this morning – those ancient cedars I've been wanting to photograph – but the festival kept pulling me in. A small gallery had its doors open, showing watercolor paintings of cats in traditional Japanese settings. Cats sleeping in temple gardens. Cats walking along torii gates. One painting showed a cat and a deer nose-to-nose in what looked like Nara Park, which made me smile after yesterday's deer encounters.

The owner, an elderly woman arranging ceramic cat figurines, noticed me studying the paintings. "Neko suki desu ka?" she asked. Do you like cats?

"Hai," I said, though honestly I'm more of a dog person back home. But there was something about the art here – the way the cats were depicted not as cute or silly, but with this quiet dignity. Very Japanese, I suppose.

She showed me a series of small prints by a local artist who apparently spends his days sketching the stray cats that live around the temples. Each print captured a different cat in a moment of complete unselfconsciousness: one stretching in a patch of sunlight, another grooming itself on temple steps, a third staring intently at something beyond the frame.

I bought two prints. One shows a tabby cat sitting beneath what I'm pretty sure is a maple tree, its leaves just starting to turn. The other is a black cat walking along the top of a traditional wooden fence, silhouetted against an evening sky. They're small enough to fit in my backpack without getting crushed.

The weather today is perfect – 22°C and sunny, completely different from yesterday's downpour. My shoes are finally dry. I walked through more of Naramachi after the gallery, following the cat art like breadcrumbs. The neighborhood is a maze of narrow lanes lined with traditional machiya townhouses. Many have been converted into cafés, craft shops, and small museums.

I stopped at a café that specialized in matcha and sat at a window seat watching people walk by. A group of school children passed, each carrying a sketchbook – probably part of the festival somehow. An older man cycled past slowly, a basket on his handlebars containing what looked like groceries and a small potted plant.

The café owner brought my matcha latte with a cat design in the foam. Of course. But it was done with such care – the whiskers perfectly symmetrical, the ears just the right shape – that I took a photo before drinking it. Tourist behavior, I know, but sometimes you have to document these small moments of craftsmanship.

I still haven't made it to Kasuga Taisha. Or Isuien Garden. My carefully planned morning dissolved into this unplanned wander through Naramachi, and I'm not even slightly bothered. This is what I meant yesterday about not having clear answers – sometimes the best part of travel is letting yourself be pulled off course by something unexpected.

Though I should probably visit at least one major temple today. The festival will be here all month, but I won't.

After I finish this coffee, I'll head to Kasuga Taisha. The shrine opens at 9:00, and it's... 12:15 now. So much for my punctuality. But the morning light through those ancient cedars will be worth it, even if it's technically afternoon light by the time I get there.

The prints are wrapped carefully in tissue paper in my bag. I'm not sure where I'll hang them when I eventually get home – if I still have a home after 500 days, if I haven't somehow transformed into someone who can't settle back into an apartment in Kristiansand. But that's a problem for January 2027.

For now, there are cats painted on walls, and ancient trees waiting to be photographed, and 224 days still ahead of me.

The restlessness from Kyoto has completely faded. Nara feels like exactly where I'm supposed to be right now.