Ninja Festival

During the month of April every weekend in a small town called Iga-Uneo in Mie Prefecture hordes of people show up in ninja costumes hoping to practice their ninja skills. I had no idea this town existed and I certainly didn't know about the festival until I listened to the How Ninja Work episode of Stuff You Should Know. (Consequently if you are not subscribing to this podcast then you should be because it is awesome.) As soon as I became aware of this knowledge it became my mission to make it to the Ninja Festival in Iga.

I convinced my new friend Allison to join me. We met in Nagoya Station and then headed to Iga. It takes forever to get there. Because ninja were secret warriors their training centers were in the middle of nowhere. There are two areas in Japan known for their ninja training schools - one in Mie Prefecture (right next to Aichi where I live) and the other in Shikoku. We took three trains from Nagoya. The last one was a local train with a ninja theme painted on it. They even had some high school aged ninja reading off the stops.


The ninja train


In the train station. They were all over town though and honestly were a bit creepy.


When we finally arrived we were greeted by more ninja who gave us some mochi and if we could win at janken then we could have some sembei. My ninja kindly threw paper every time and let me play three times until I beat her and could get the sembei. Who said ninja aren't kind?


Adorable elementary school ninja!


After some wandering around we finally figured out what we were supposed to be doing - testing our ninja skills! For a small fee we got a piece of paper and a map. We went around town to different stations where they tested our skills. I sucked at most of them. But Allison was really good at throwing ninja stars. Remind me not to make her angry! There might have been some sort of prize at the end but we never did figure it out.


We had to blow out 10 candles with only 3 tries. Failed!


Throwing stars. Failed!


And shooting arrows. Also failed! I suck as a ninja. :-(


After lunch we headed to the ninja museum where we saw a ninja show and toured the ninja house and museum. In the show they showed several different weapons and methods of fighting. I was the most impressed with the way a ninja could fight a man with a sword with just a piece of long rope. The little boy sitting in front of us though seemed more interested in Allison and me than the ninja.


Demonstrating these scary looking weapons.


A fighting demonstration


Our new blue ninja friend.


The ninja house had lots of hiding places and secret places where they could see you but you couldn't see them. The museum portion explained that most ninja did not wear the bright blue or even black costumes we kept seeing around town but usually wore the clothing of a farmer so they could pass by unnoticed. The problem with a ninja costume is that then everyone knows you are a ninja!



A ninja house looks pretty normal.


But it has secret doors.


And secret hiding places.


Because Iga is so far away we couldn't stay as long as we wanted but had to catch the train back to Aichi. It took me over 3 hours one way but in the end it was definitely worth it.


Ninja Festival 2010!

Before I went to China I took a quick weekend up to Nikko with my good friend Marie (pronounced Mah-ree-ae).

Nikko wasn't really on my radar of places to visit in Japan until I read a book on early Japanese American relations and it said that the must see sights for early American tourists were Nikko, Fuji, and Kyoto. So on Friday night we hopped on the overnight bus to Tokyo. After breakfast at McDonald's (and some freshening up in the bathroom) we took the train from Tokyo to Nikko. Then it was another bus to see Lake Chuzenji where we wandered around, shopping and visiting a local temple.



Lunch on Saturday. Nikko is famous for yuba-soybean paste dried and rolled into noodles.








On Sunday we got up and made our way to visit the famous Tosho-gu temple. It differs from other Japanese temples in its ornate decorations and colorful carvings. Since it was a holiday weekend it was packed but we still had a nice time. We even managed to do a little geocaching.


















I like how someone created this small turtle. :)




After the temple we headed over to the Kinugawa Onsen area to try some more modern attractions. The first was a maze. The told us that the average time to get through it is 40 minutes but if you made it in less than 20 then you could have a free drink afterwards. Marie and I thought we were way above average and we totally had this. Then we got in there and realized we would be lucky to make it out in under 40 minutes. We got through in 43 minutes.


At the start.





This is when we realized that this wasn't going to be easy.


A give up door and a sign saying we went the wrong way.

Then we went to the Trick Museum. It wasn't really a museum but they had lots of paintings on the wall that played with perspective. They encouraged you to take lots of different and fun pictures. We only had an hour before they closed and even though we could have definitely stayed a lot longer we took advantage of the little time we did have. It was really really fun. After the Trick Museum we grabbed dinner and then found a hotel that had an onsen. Our feet were aching and it was nice to soak and relax.

Monday morning we woke up and caught the train back to Tahara. Tuesday I went to work and Wednesday I caught a flight to Beijing. I'm almost caught up on my travelogues, but not quite yet. I still have the Ninja Festival to post about and Monday I'm going to Hamamatsu to see the Kite Festival and Tuesday I leave for Seoul, South Korea for 4 days. So much to see and so little time. Sometimes I think 3 months is too long to wait to go home and other times I wonder why I didn't re-contract to stay another year.

Back to Beijing

After another 12 hour train ride we arrived back in Beijing. There was more staring but that was nothing compared to the taxi line of DOOM! We waited in line with hundreds of other people fresh off the same train as us.

Let me start by explaining that in Chinese society the idea of queuing up is not as natural as say in countries like the US or Japan. Most places there are no lines. My mom kept getting flustered and irritated when she would try to politely wait only to have people push right by her.

So we come to this line which was only enforced by two metal handrails to corral us all. Pushing was still part of the game but in this crowd it only got you so far. At one point there was no part of my body save my face that was pushed up against someone else. It was like a huge group hug except with strangers and luggage.

After finally getting a taxi and arriving back at our hotel, Dad and I headed back out to see the hutong. These are old traditional neighborhoods that are quickly disappearing and being replaced by high rises. The Lonely Planet was very sentimental and made them seem like they were quaint and picturesque. In truth they were a maze of dirty narrow streets with closed doors and very few hints of what lay behind them. We took a rickshaw tour which was ok. We negotiated a really low rate which was good because I would have been irritated to have spent more money just to see the little that we saw. It might have been grumpiness left over from the taxi line of DOOM but neither Dad or I were impressed.






That night we went to an acrobatics show. And that was far from disappointing. After the Great Wall this was the next thing I was really excited for. Mom almost smacked me on the subway ride over because I decided she was not exhibiting enough enthusiasm for the show and tried to pump her up. (She still wasn't feeling well at that point.)

The show itself was awesome! They had lights and fogs. They sold popcorn and icecream. And the bendiness...oh the bendiness of those Chinese acrobats. They had 12 girls on a bicycle. They had two guys running around in a ring of death. And we had front row seats for the whole 1 1/2 hour extravaganza. Sadly, they didn't allow pictures so here's a shot of the three of us before the show started.



The last day Dad and I headed back out without Mom to see the Forbidden City. Not surprisingly it was a lot less crowded on a Thursday versus Sunday. Members of the royal family lived here and were not allowed out. Certain people were allowed into the first two thirds of the city but only eunuchs, servants, and royals were allowed in the inner court. It was beautiful although I will admit after awhile all of the courtyards started to blend together. The audio guide was nice though. It was full of stories of palace intrigue and scandals.








One of several throne rooms




The royal "climbing wall." The emperor and his concubines climbed this for fun in the spring.



They have this clock exhibit inside the Forbidden City. You have to pay extra but it wasn't much so we shelled out and went in. We actually timed this for 11am so that we could see the clocks go off. A wonderful plan except that we didn't realize there were two rooms in the exhibit and only discovered where the clocks went off the last 20 seconds of the last clock. Cue my Dad's sad face. Oh well he still enjoyed the other clocks. I have kindly chosen only 3 pictures to show you out of the dozens he took in there. ;-)




This one was cool because this little man writes a Chinese character on the hour.


After leaving the Forbidden City we went across the street to the park and hiked up the hill to see a view overlooking the palace. But not before Dad excitingly pointed out the moat. I tried to tell him there was a moat at the front where we came in (and had crossed over 3 times before during other trips to Tienanmen) but he didn't believe me.


Look! There's a moat!


The view overlooking the Forbidden City


He really liked that moat. ;)


After lunch we headed back to the hotel where we spent our last night relaxing and packing. We had one last lunch with our new American friends from earlier in the week and then it was off to the airport. Mom can mark the Great Wall off her bucket list and I didn't have to wait a whole year between seeing them both.