Kuching Cat Museum - Crazy for cats

If you adore everything feline, a visit to the Kuching Cat Museum is a must.

The first thing you notice when you step off the plane is that the people in Kuching, Sarawak are crazy about cats.

Huge, colourful cat statues dominate the town. The fishing cats dominate the centre square, the beckoning cat stands at the crossroads and the smiling cat stands guard at roundabouts.

Part of the local fascination stems from the fact that kuching means cat in Malay. Lively discussions centre on whether this refers to the wild cats that dominated the area in times past, or the proliferation of a local fruit tree whose lychee-like fruit is nicknamed mata kuching or cat’s eyes.

Still others suggest that the name refers to the coiling shape of the river that winds through the city.

Whatever the reason, Kuching announced it was a Cat City on August 1, 1988 and threw itself into celebrating the cat. To kick it off, the Sarawak Museum took over a cat display from the National Museum, Kuala Lumpur. As it proved popular and the collection grew, the exhibition was given its own space in Kuching’s North City Hall in 1993.

Continue reading (incl. pics) at: Kuching Cat Museum - Crazy for cats