Blogs from Iga-Ueno, Mie, Japan, Asia

On my final day in Japan, I hung out in Iga and finally got to watch the Ninja show. It was amazing watching ninja's fight each other, demonstrate how to use weapons, and even have kids come up to hold katanas. We saw several demonstrations for using shurikan, which come in several shapes and sizes. Shurikan are usually dipped in poison, so that the small wound quickly becomes lethal. One of the ninja's working that day, I felt sorry for them having to wear such thin clothing in freezing weather. The younger ninja demonstrated how to throw one, two, and three shurikan at once. I'm not sure how the technique works, but the method of throwing results in all shurikan striking equidistant from each other in a straight line. We also saw a live demonstration (planned ... read more

Home of the Ninja Iga is considered the home of the ninja, and their history is intertwined with the history and developments of ninjas. It was a cold day, and my meanderings through ancient forests guarded by castles and training temples was crisp indeed. There was practically no one around and I soon saw why – nearly everything was closed until the weekend. After hearing this bit of disappointing news (I was planning on spending the entire day in Iga to save some money on train fair), I decided to walk through the ninja museum. This wasn’t like a typical American museum, but was instead an old ninja house. It had trap doors, secrete observation rooms, places to hide weapons and tools, revolving walls, the whole nine yards. There were many women donning traditional ninja ... read more