Annika's Lucky Cat

Back in September, as summer was coming to a close, I met Annika near Federal Hall on Wall Street.
She had a bunch of tattoos, and shared this, her Lucky Cat:

This is a version of the traditional Japanese maneki-neko cat.

Annika explained, "I studied economics and, in Asia, everybody has [the maneki-neko cat] in their shops for business prosperity." She added, "for me it’s just like having a career and being lucky at what I do and loving my job."

When I asked why the cat is holding a sign that says "No Pain No gain," Annika replied, "because sometimes you just have to work hard to earn what you deserve ."

Annika hails from Germany and I asked why she had the phrase in English. She modestly replied, "Because it doesn’t sound that good in German … I used to live in England and California, so I really like English … I have [tattoos in] English and French and hardly any German lettering."

This cool cat was tattooed by Andrik at Farbenpracht Tattoo in Munich, Germany.

Thanks to Annika for sharing her maneki-neko with us on Tattoosday!

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Stephanie's Tattoo Bring Her Home

I spotted some pretty spectacular tattoos at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade last month. This one, on Stephanie, was one such example:

Stephanie credited this to Jesse Roberts at Dark Age Tattoo in Seattle, Washington. She also told me a little bit about the symbolism of the piece:

"It's a Chinese junk ... that's a merchant ship. I chose it to have red sails because red is a lucky color in Chinese folklore ...there's a prosperity aspect of it being a merchant ship. Sunset ... is a symbol of change, the waves are clam and ships are a kind of homecoming, I got it when I moved back east from Seattle."

Thanks to Stephanie for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.