Ariev asked us (Fahmi, Indri and me) whether we would be interested in visiting a cat cafe in Singapore during our free trip hosted by Skyscanner. I screamed out my interest since I love cats. Well, I am not addicted like super crazy in love with everything about cats, though I do have cats at home and I think they are cute. So the idea of visiting the cat cafe was a good idea for me as I had never been to a cat cafe before. Why not give a try, right? Fahmi and Indri were less interested about cats, they wanted to visit a book store and wandering around Clarke Quay (and probably do some fishing, not too sure if this is possible though).

March 22, 2014 was the day when Ariev and me finally visited the cat cafe, Neko no Niwa, in Singapore. We were running late when we walked from Clarke Quay to Boat Quay and I told Ariev that we needed to hurry up. After much confusion, we managed to find the cafe around 11.15 am (we were 15 mins late). We walked up the narrow stairs with cute cats paintings on both sides. I got very excited! The waitress greeted us and welcomed us after we gave our booking details. “Shoes on grass only” was the next thing that I noticed. So we needed to take off our shoes before entering the cat area. I put my shoes in the shoe cabinet and walked into the cat area.

So this is how a cat cafe looks like! There were cats on chairs and tables. There were grooming tools and plenty of toys for playing with the cats. However, the cat cafe was not like what I imagined it would be. The cafe was located at 54A Boat Quay (Level 2) it is quite small. I was imagining that the place would be pretty big and have a lot of cats. They have more than a dozen cats though (frankly less than what I expected) and unfortunately when we arrived it was their nap time (oh wait, cats are always asleep and being lazy, especially when they are not kittens). I swear that day was a super tough day because we were prohibited from waking a sleeping cat, but all the cats were very adorable. It made me really want to squeeze, stroke and slowly poke them. Trust me, I managed to control myself that day. 😀 😉

Some of you might be curious how it looks like so please enjoy some pictures that Ariev and I took in the cat cafe. Oh, below are several important things that you need to know before you go to a cat cafe.

– You do need to make a reservation
– There is a cuddle charge which is $12 per hour per person
– They do have rules; such as: Don’t wake a sleeping cat, Never attempt to hold or carry a cat (but it’s ok if they jump onto you lap), Never pull a cat’s tail, whiskers, ears, fur.. etc
– You can’t bring your own cat(s). Obviously.

a cat cafe boat quay

Picture by @arievrahman

Neko no Niwa Singapore (12)

Find out more about the Cafe rules 🙂

Neko no Niwa Singapore (1)

Panoramic view of the cafe

Neko no Niwa Singapore (4)

a cat cafe the cat

Meet Emma. Picture by @arievrahman

Neko no Niwa Singapore (2)

This one is Kai Kai

Neko no Niwa Singapore (6)Neko no Niwa Singapore (14)Neko no Niwa Singapore (7)

Check out their website for more details.

Have you ever visited a cat cafe or any animal cafe? What was your experience like?