Ninjas

Yeah, that's a ninja. Cutting stuff, no less.

You know, sometimes going on a random car trip with one of your Japanese buddies without any real plans or even a map can be a good thing, as long as you have a gps (whether you actually use its direction function or not) and a hazy idea.

It’s Thursday night and as I’m watching one of my weekly shows on the computer, my phone says “You’ve got mail” three times, and then goes silent. After being kind of freaked out because I forgot to put it on silent, I walk over to it and read the message, which happens to be from Kazu, one of my Japanese friends.

It read something to the tune of “Hey, I’m renting a car. Let’s go see ninjas and Nara on Sunday. Invite some friends.” So I immediately replied in the affirmative and went scouting the house for prospective adventurers.

It might be selling out, but, truth be told, it's fun.

Turns out, Thursday’s the day when people have already decided what they’re doing for the weekend.

I couldn’t find a soul who didn’t already have plans. So, two nights later, while I was at karaoke with some friends, I got another text from Kazu asking if I had found anyone yet. I had almost forgotten about my earlier plans, since the night had been rather full, so I immediately asked my singing compadres whether they’d like to go on a trip. One, Drew, said, “Yeah, sure.”

And thus, our group was formed.

I awoke the next morning at 1045am and within 20 minutes was in a nice, new Honda Insight on the way to Iga city.

Biwa

On the way there, though, we decided that it would be cool to check out Japan’s largest lake, Lake Biwa, and take a few pictures. A short cruise around the lakefront, and we found a parking spot at a hardware store (shh… don’t tell them), and we went to the lake for a couple of minutes.

Truth be told, this happened to be one of the nicest days since I’ve arrived in Japan, since most of the time, you can’t see the blue sky, and if you can, more often than not it’s a pretty humid day whether the camera can capture it or not.

That said, I took a nice panoramic shot of the lake, and a couple of random shots before Drew called to our collective attention that we had nothing in our stomach and were therefore ravenously hungry. That in mind, a McDonalds was revealed to us by the GPS which Kazu refused to let actually lead us and rather point us in general directions.

Finding the McDonalds took a minute or two longer than it should have, but, after being properly sated, we turned the car in the general direction of Iga, and continued our journey.

Once we reached Iga, Kazu began a search for free parking which set us about a mile and a half from our destination, which happened to be on top of a small mountain (few things in Japan aren’t on top of a hill or a mountain, truth be told). So we trekked a while and arrived at the Iga ninja museum.

Arriving, Drew seemed surprised that the museum wasn’t free, but after a quick review of what we would be seeing, we all fished in our pockets for 700 yen in change and another 200 yen for the ninja show (“why not?” he said, counting out another 200 yen).

They're everywhere

About the Ninja Show, three words alone: “totally worth it.” It was a return to fun childhood memories, the suspension of disbelief, and the indulgence of simpler wishes from my entertainment. As two other college students and I walked away from the finished show, we only talked about how fun it was and how it was such a great investment.

Now that we were done with the demonstration, we moved on to the actual museum, which was just as fun in a much more informative way.

We learned all about ninja implements and ninja life, how colored rice could be arranged for messages, and how ninjas actually couldn’t walk on water (only on thicker, muddy water, and with special shoes that spread their weight over a large area).

Iga Ueno Castle

After that, our short attention spans directed us to a castle nearby. Fifteen minutes of enjoying the view of the castle and the surrounding town later, we departed for the car and ended up stopping in a bookstore on the way, where I bought a couple of cheap manga (Japanese comics) and we left for Nara.

On the car ride to Nara, we talked about what to expect there (deer), and how, because of the mountains, Japanese highways let you get nowhere near the speed of their American counterparts, which was interesting to me, and probably the reason why most Japanese people just use trains to get from one place to another.

Upon arriving, we hurried to our destination, a park, and, since it was about nighttime already, we couldn’t park, so we just did a drive-by of the herds of deer roaming a green field to the side of town. That task completed, we searched for a place to eat and then went home.

All in all, I’d say that was a good day, wouldn’t you?