Ochun
Loves baths, endlessly needy.
Cats & Kurashi
A LIFE WITH CATS & A GARDEN
Welcome
Two ways in
Made in Japan
Tools & wisdom
The everyday objects and old-fashioned know-how of a Japanese home — a cast-iron kettle, a stack of local pottery, the summer ritual of putting up ume. Used for real.
Explore the tools Life with catsSeven rescued cats
Harness walks, a bath-loving tabby, and the daily rhythm of a multi-cat home — the same cats you’ll find on Instagram and YouTube.
Meet the catsTools & Wisdom
Made in Japan, used for real
Not a shop of everything — the Japanese tools and know-how worth keeping. Some I live with, some I’ve researched with care. More are added slowly, as the seasons bring them round.
01
Ume & Umeboshi 梅仕事
The summer ritual of putting up ume — plum syrup, plum jam, a jar of plum liqueur, even blueberries steeping in whisky. The quiet know-how of preserving a season in a jar.
Read the story 02Tetsubin 鉄瓶
A cast-iron kettle that rounds out the water and, they say, adds a little iron. Heavy, slow, and made to last a lifetime.
Read the story 03Mashiko ware 益子焼
The pottery of my home town in Tochigi — the plates and bowls I choose each year at the Mashiko pottery fair, and use every day.
Read the story ＋More, seasonally
A donabe for winter hot-pots, furoshiki for wrapping, a hand-forged knife… added when the season and the story are right.
See all toolsCat companionship
Seven cats, two homes
A town flat and the family home — two places, seven cats, each keeping to their own rhythm.
Living with me
At home with me
Karubo
Loves his food and the outdoors alike.
Family home
The family-home four
Guko
The long-reigning boss — tsundere, but with a playful side, too.
Momosuke
A house cat slowly going half-wild — our wanderer; his mother is Guri.
Maruko
Ochun & Karubo’s little sister; a small devil.
Guri & Gura
Former strays — the elder pair of the family.
A family, really
Ochun, Karubo, and Maruko are Gura’s three kittens — siblings, with Pusuke as their father. Momosuke is Guri’s son; his four littermates went to other homes, and he grew up with those three instead. Guri and Gura are sisters, so the four are cousins — but their mothers are different, and it’s the years of growing up side by side that have made them brothers in all but birth.
All seven are rescues — my dear, beloved family.
At Rainbow Bridge
The family we remember
Koume ♀
— 2021
Our shepherd, who kept walking in a wheelchair.
Pusuke ♂
— 2024
Father of Ochun and Karubo.
Kibo ♂
— spring 2026
A brown tabby who came to us from the strays.
Their stories
Read more in Life with Cats →
In pictures
The cats, at home
The everyday, as it actually looks — a life you can see in photographs.
About
About Cats & Kurashi
Cats & Kurashi is one Japanese woman’s record of the tools and small rituals that make an ordinary home feel good to live in — and the seven cats who share it.
You’ll feel at home here if:
- you love Japanese design, food, and craft
- you’d rather own a few good things than many
- you’re happiest with a cat nearby
Made in Japan, used at home.
A slower way of living, with seven cats never far away.
It began with food. Before my current work, I trained as a natural-food coordinator — out of a real curiosity about how we eat and live well in Japan — and that slowly became a way of living. These days I work as a photographer and web designer here, but the daily habits stayed: a cast-iron kettle and a bamboo steamer in constant use, ume put up each summer, a few well-made things kept and cared for. This is where I write it down, with seven cats never far away.
Stop living the hard way — live by the voice in your heart.
If a fragment of these days becomes someone’s first step, that would make me happy.
Let’s be friends
Come along for the slow days
The kettle, the cats, a jar of ume on the windowsill — most of it starts on Instagram and YouTube. Questions, or just want to say hello? I’d love to hear from you.