Cafe Kei

Today I had the day off, but Russell had to work. Around lunch, though, we decided to get out of the house. We went to Cafe Kei - the cafe I have mentioned several times before. Kei is the owner (about our age) and we suspect the cook is her mother. Recently, her sister joined the team too.

From the beginning, Cafe Kei has had funky artwork in the walls all by the same artist. The signature said Psi. About the time Kei's sister showed up, Kei showed us a book of art that had just been published featuring sculptures by Psi. It turned out that Psi was her sister - or rather, her sister's alias. We also discovered in the bio of the book, that "Psi" was a competitive golfer. Who knew!

Since her sister has been around, we have been seeing a number of art project cropping up around the cafe. At first it was small decorations made out of coffee grounds. Then at Christmas a rather large Jasmine plant was turned into a Christmas tree of sorts with colored circles clothespinned to the fat leaves like ornaments and 5 yen coins (the circles with the holes in them) hung on the little buds that came out of the branches. It was super cute.


After the New Year's break, we were treated to a new surprise - a large beautiful mural on the wall. I love it. It makes the cafe feel a bit quirkier and more comfortable. The Jasmine plant is also still on display, though it is now a "money tree" meant to encourage money to find its way into the store. I believe the new mural is along the same theme. It is hard to see in the picture I posted, but there are also 5 yen coins hung on the wall like leaves of the branches that are painted. Its even better in person. My picture doesn't do it justice.

So Cafe Kei is getting cooler all the time. I hope their money tree brings them lots of good fortune!