At Kish Station, the end of the Wakayama Electric Railway Kishigawa Line, there is a cute kitty-stationmaster TAMAⅡ(NITAMA). She has created the role since original stationmaster TAMA passed away. The station building, with its design inspired by TAMA, house cozy café and souvenir store. In addition, Wakayama Electric Railway operate 4 unique trains such as Tama-themed train, Tama-densha museum train, ichigo(strawberry) train and umeboshi train.
※There is no car park at Kisi Station. Access is by train only.
◎ TAMAⅡ’s work schedule
10:00～16:00 (※Day off: Wed, Thu)
◎ Single Fares (Wakayama ⇔ Kishi)
Adult ￥400 Child ￥200
◎ One day ticket is selling for tourists, and you can save more money.
Adult ￥780 Child ￥390
Travel Blogger's Review
瓶顆(pink)
She is a travel blogger. She is a Taiwanese living in Tokyo.
In mid-October 2021 she took a trip to Wakayama City.
Her blog is here: yunique.cc
After strolling around Wakayama Castle, I started to head over to Wakayama Station to catch the “Tama Train” that I have always dreamed of. It was very VERY pretty!!
When buying my ticket, the station staff had recommended I purchase a one-day ticket that would be equal to one round trip. The train does come pretty quickly so make sure to arrive at the station early so that you have time to take pictures. I really liked the interior design of the trains.
James Hong
In-depth traveller, columnist and host of a travel program, integrating literary, historical and philosophical art into travel writing. Selected as a pro-writer, student favorite writer, my favorite star travel expert, international travel exhibition ambassador, Japan and South Korea and other countries travel ambassadors.
He've been to Wakayama City, from 20th to 22nd February in 2020.
His blog is "終生遊學".
https://jamestrip.com/
Life is really hard. Fun school memory has gone deep inside our mind. My childhood friends went their separate ways. Next time we will meet each other for a long while as a old person.
A cat life is also nothing different. A Calico cat, originally having no single worry of its life, started to be forced to work from 9 to 5, in order to promote Kishigawa railway line in Wakayama prefecture that has nothing to do with its life. In this way, this cat became the most cute but poor, unpaid station master.
The popular station master cat, called Tama, has already passed away and enshirined at the station shrine as a god. The second station master now is taken over by a cat called Nitama.
Kishi station official website for cat lovers.
【The story of cat station master】
Kishi station is an unmanned train station located in Wakayama prefecture, which is almost abandoned 13 years ago, due to insufficient passengers.
From Wakayama city, it takes 30 minutes to get Kishi station. According to the document,this station is an unmanned train station. However, with the help of the cutest station master in the world, this station got popular rapidly!
In 2007 a shop inside Kishi station adopted a stray cat “Tama”. Tama took up a mission to be a station master in order to save the station. In this way, Tama became the first Calico cat station master vitalizing the station by acheiving 17% of passanger increase, contributed 1,1 billion yen profit to this area! Her anual salary was a year amount of cat food. On her duty, she was awarded the title of “Super Staion Master”, “Acting President of Wakayama Railway Company”, “Wakayama De Night” as well as “Wakayama Prefecture Tourism Maneki Daimyojin”. In 2015 her funneral attracted more than 3,000 people to pray for her,including Asahi Shimbun news company on live coverage. Even after her death she was awarded the title of “Honourable Eternal Station Master”.
「Cute!」shouted both sides of tourists beside the glass box. However, the staion master sit on the warm mat meditating, without even giving a glance to them.
Now it is Nitama, the second station master, that sitting on the warm mat inside the glass box, surrounded by tourists with camera. Forced to go back and forth between small room and work, provided with only limitted room, trapped inside without having any freedom, having nothing fun for, this helpless situation is what we can tell from the face of cat.
But Nitama is not alone. Today a famous Cat Lord of castle from Takahashi city of Okayama prefecture visited Nitama. Actually it was not Sanjuro himself, the name of cat lord of castle, but the staff from tourist bureau visited here on behalf, for exchanging information!
He is famous ramen bloger. His blogs brings you reviews and photos from my search for amazing ramen in Japan .
In the beginning of December , 2017, he took a trip to Wakayama City.
His blog is “ Ramen Adventures ”.
http://www.ramenadventures.com/
Tama Station is named after, yes, a cat.In 2006, the entire train line was in financial trouble. They de-staffed their stations, having local business owners handle some of the day-to-day duties. One such person, Toshiko Koyama, was fond of feeding a pack of local stray cats that gathered in the area. Tama, one of those stray cats, began spending a lot of time here, and in 2007 was named as the station master, eventually rising to the rank of Super Station Master. The hype brought in tourism (mostly young girls my taxi driver informed me). The station now houses a cafe, a little museum, and a shrine dedicated to Tama, who passed away in 2015. Tama’s successor, Nitama, now has stationmaster duties.But, like any hard worker, Nitama has some days off.With the main use of this railway now being for tourism, the company took things further and made a four custom trains; themed after strawberries, Tama, umeboshi, and toys.Very cute. There were, even on a weekday, quite a few train otaku riding and taking photos.The Tama train, named after Super Station Master Tama.Remember how Nitama is off a few days a week? On those days, you can find Yontama at Idakiso Station, on the way back to Wakayama.Like most cats, sleeping.For something like 800 yen, you can get a 1-day pass for this line, and explore the local spots. Trains run surprisingly frequent, so feel free to jump off to see what is around. At Idakiso Station some local schoolchildren wrote a guidebook to the area.The Omocha Densha, or Omoden, is that toy themed train.Again, cute. I was informed by some train photography nerds that the umeboshi train only runs on Sundays.Again, cute. I was informed by some train photography nerds that the umeboshi train only runs on Sundays.
She is travel blogger. She is good at Solo Travel.
In the beginning of November , 2017, she took a trip to Wakayama City.
Her blog is “ Voyages et Vagabondages ”.
https://voyagesetvagabondages.com/
Wakayama se découvre aussi par la fenêtre du train. La ville est très étendue, entre centre-ville, campagne, plage, village de pêcheurs, village de surfeurs, parc d’attractions, etc. Il est donc très agréable de la parcourir en train et en bus, le nez collé à la fenêtre pour découvrir ses paysages. En prenant le train de Wakayama-shi à Kada par exemple. Mais c’est également le cas de la fameuse ligne de train électrique Kishigawa, connue pour le terminus Tama et son chef de gare, un chat. Oui, oui.
L’attrait de cette ligne ne réside pas pour moi en ce pauvre chat, mais bien dans les paysages traversés: paysages urbains, montagnes, rizières, temples, villages etc. Ayant perdu ma brochure d’explications en Anglais, j’ai décidé de m’arrêter un peu au hasard et de marcher entre plusieurs stations pour aller au-delà de la vue par la fenêtre. Ayant déjà parcouru cette ligne la dernière fois, j’avais tout de même une idée de ce que j’allais découvrir, mais j’ai été surprise, une fois de plus, par la beauté de la campagne japonaise.
La campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travel
Je ne l’avais jamais fait. Prendre un train, m’arrêter au hasard à une station, marcher pour voir ce que je découvre, m’arrêter à une autre et recommencer. Et je suis vraiment heureuse d’avoir testé cela, car j’ai fait de belles découvertes. Une campagne verdoyante à souhait, des fleurs sauvages, des vergers, les rizières et les champs sur fond de montagnes et de villages, un lac, un champ de lotus en fleur, un temple, des ruelles typiques… C’était magnifique, cela sentait bon l’été et les cigales chantaient comme jamais. J’ai même pu acheter des pêches pour 1 euro pour me rafraîchir. Elles étaient délicieuses.
La campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travel
L’attrait de cette ligne ne réside pas pour moi en ce pauvre chat, mais bien dans les paysages traversés: paysages urbains, montagnes, rizières, temples, villages etc. Ayant perdu ma brochure d’explications en Anglais, j’ai décidé de m’arrêter un peu au hasard et de marcher entre plusieurs stations pour aller au-delà de la vue par la fenêtre. Ayant déjà parcouru cette ligne la dernière fois, j’avais tout de même une idée de ce que j’allais découvrir, mais j’ai été surprise, une fois de plus, par la beauté de la campagne japonaise.
Je ne l’avais jamais fait. Prendre un train, m’arrêter au hasard à une station, marcher pour voir ce que je découvre, m’arrêter à une autre et recommencer. Et je suis vraiment heureuse d’avoir testé cela, car j’ai fait de belles découvertes. Une campagne verdoyante à souhait, des fleurs sauvages, des vergers, les rizières et les champs sur fond de montagnes et de villages, un lac, un champ de lotus en fleur, un temple, des ruelles typiques… C’était magnifique, cela sentait bon l’été et les cigales chantaient comme jamais. J’ai même pu acheter des pêches pour 1 euro pour me rafraîchir. Elles étaient délicieuses.
La campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travelLa campagne dans la ville de Wakayama lors d’un voyage authentique au Japon en mode slow travel