These are the amazing things you can do in Japan on Cat Day

8:22:00 AM
Cats crowd the harbour on Aoshima Island in the Ehime prefecture in southern Japan February 25, 2015Image copyrightReuters
Are you a cat person? If so, Japan is the place to be on 22 February because this is when Cat Day is celebrated.
Now in its 30th year, Cat Day has lit up Japanese social media with endless portraits of ...cats as well as cat-themed doughnuts, cat-shaped biscuits, cat manga, cats staring soulfully out of windows, kittens mewing expectantly and so on. On this day it is Japan's hugest trend on social media.

What happens on Cat Day?

Known as "Neko no Hi", it was chosen because the date's numerals, 2/22 (ni ni ni), are pronounced fairly closely to the sound a cat makes in Japan (nyan nyan nyan).
You can play tricks on your cat
Picture of Twitter user RitzChan's catImage copyrightTwitter / @RitzChan_
Image captionThis Twitter user pranked a sleeping pet cat which woke up to find itself buried under an avalanche of toy mice
Tweet by @HirokiAsai_0201 of his catImage copyrightTwitter / @HirokiAsai_0201
Image captionAnother user felt the need to get close to his pet on Cat Day
You can dress up as a cat
Tweet by @yancoromarch on Cat DayImage copyrightTwitter / @yancoromarch
Image captionOne famous cosplayer who donned cat ears was Yancoromarch
Enthusiasts of cosplay, the art of dressing up like animated characters, posted pictures of themselves dressed as cats, or wearing "nekomimi" (cat's ears).
You can make food look like cats
Tweet by @_HO_TA_TE_ on cat-shaped onigiri ballsImage copyrightTwitter / @_HO_TA_TE_
Image captionSome have celebrated by making cat-shaped food, like rice balls
You can monetise cats
Over the years the day has become a commercial success, with shops and businesses releasing cat-themed items.
Tweet by @ikumi_mama on special donuts for Cat DayImage copyrightTwitter / @ikumi_mama
Image captionIkumi Mama, a bakery known for producing animal-shaped pastries, released a special set of cat doughnuts
Tweet by @nekokeizai on Kaldi Coffee FarmImage copyrightTwitter / @nekokeizai
Image captionKaldi Coffee Farm, which sells coffee and imported foods, released a special cat-themed bag for the day, including tea, biscuits and a calendar
Disney in Japan declared the day to be "Marie Day," after the young female character from the Aristocats, while newspaper Asahi Shimbun marked the occasion with a special report from one of Japan's cat cafes, where you can sit for an hour or two in the company of numerous pampered and purring moggies.
Tweet by @bonjour_licca on Cat DayImage copyrightTwitter/ @bonjour_licca
Image captionJapan's answer to Barbie, Licca-chan, added her take on the day with a catty outfit

How did it start?

The event began in 1987 after an Executive Cat Day Committee polled cat-lovers across Japan and decided that February 22 should be Cat Day.
Other countries also have days to celebrate cats, but few marked with as much enthusiasm as Japan's.

Some of Japan's celebrity cats

A cat called Tama made headlines after becoming honorary stationmaster of a train station in Wakayama prefecture. Wearing a special cat-sized stationmaster's hat, she was a popular tourist attraction until her death in June 2015.
Tama was duly inducted into a hall of fame for the station's train line in February 2016.
A woman tries to take a photo of 'Tama', a nine-year-old female tortoiseshell cat wearing a formal stationmaster's cap of the Wakayama Electric Railway, as the feline sits on a ticket gate at Kishi station on the Kishigawa line in the city of Kinokawa, in Wakayama prefecture on 22 May 2008.Image copyrightAFP/Getty Images
Image captionTama pulled in fans and tourists till her death last year
Meanwhile, a cat called Maru became an internet sensation with a series of YouTube videos. The videos have had huge viewing figures since 2008, with one early film gaining 21.7 million views.
And then there's Nyancat - the internet meme which features a flying cartoon cat, creating an infinite rainbow through space, set to the sound of Hatsune Miku, a "vocaloid" human-sounding synthesiser.
The original video has been viewed 131 million times.
This is probably the day to clear up a common misconception about the global phenomenon that is Hello Kitty - the white cat without a mouth first unveiled by Japanese company Sanrio in the 1970s. Not a cat, but a girl and actually British to boot.
In this 24 July 2014 file photo, a model dressing as Japanese character Hello Kitty, right, along with Hong Kong actresses Priscilla Wong, left, and Celine Yeung, second from left, pose with a new figure of Hello Kitty unveiled at the Madame Tussauds in Hong Kong, to mark the 40th anniversary of the birth of the popular Sanrio character.Image copyrightAP
Image captionHello Kitty now has her own Madame Tussauds wax figurine in Hong Kong

But what if you're not a cat person?

Fret not. This day, 22 February, is also Ninja Day in Japan (another play on 'two' being pronounced as 'ni').
Koka city in Shiga prefecture is one of the better known places to celebrate this occasion, with town hall staff dressing as elusive assassins for the day.
Governors and mayors from Mie, Shiga, Kanagawa prefecture and former tourism agency chief Hiroshi Mizohata (first row, R) pose in ninja costumes for photos as they hold a press conference in Tokyo on 8 March 2015.Image copyrightAFP/Getty Images
Image captionOfficials in Shiga dressed up in ninja costumes last year to promote ninja tourism
Reporting by Jordan Allen, a freelance journalist in Tokyo.

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