桜と忍者
Sakura & Ninjas
It's been a long time since I updated it seems. I've been keeping real busy. Sakura season has come and passed with its typical one week life span and it has been quite lovely. Regretfully these pictures don't do them much justice but I will place them out anyhow. I ran out of pictures half way through and still haven't gotten to dump them all off on a CD so I didn't get as many as I wanted to, but such is life. Last weekend was quite the fun filled, action packed one. I went karaokeing again on friday, which was fun. On saturday I went on a school fieldtrip, first to pick strawberries (which were delicious) and then to an authentic Ninja village, Ueno-shi, the home of the Iga (?) school of ninjitsu. The Iga were one of the two best Ninja schools in Japan, and it was from there that the legendary ninja, Hattori Hanzo, immerged from.
This was taken on friday in the afternoon at Tsuramae Park, one of the best place to see sakura in Nagoya. Most of the salarymen were still at work and the peak day wasn't until saturday so there are still some empty spots underneith the trees. But not many. On saturday I went back for a conpa (student party) and the place was packed, edge to edge. Its awesome how pretty much the whole nation seems to grind to a halt over sakura week. What a neat tradition, all for looking at flowers. Of course, it is just an excuse for the Japanese to drink and party, but I don't think it a bad one.
Here are me and Andy and Justin, two of my foriegn friends that I ran into while I was taking in the sights. I'm looking slick in Jesse's aviators. Andy (with the glasses and the fingers) is the only one here who understands my strange attachment to fantasy books and I love him for it.
There are sakura trees lining alot of the streets in Nagoya and the city was quite beautiful.
Part 2: NINJA VILLAGE
But, of course what you are really interested in is the historic ninja village, so I shant waste any more time in presenting it. You can see the main house up ahead underneith the sakura trees. We were given a demonstration of all its cool secrets and traps by a real kunoichi (female ninja). It had spinning walls, secret doors, a hidden basement and a hidden attic, escapte tunnels that led to a nearby well and another to a temple, a hidden compartment with a sword and ninja stars concealed inside and it was awesome.
We also got to see a ninja show with supposedly real ninja and they demonstrated the weapons and skills of the ninja. While it was incredibly corny with background music from popular ninja movies, including kill bill, and sound effects someone jumped or swung a weaponit was also incredibly awesome. The sign at the back of the performance area helpfully proclaims "Ninja Stage".
Here they are going at it. The female ninja on the left was kicking the male ninjas butt. He got stapped in the rear and shouted, "ouch, my butthole!"
Here is the kunoichi swinging her twirly sickles around. You can get a better look here at her hilarious and traditional camo ninja outfit and killer mullet. They did crazy jumps. There was a spring board off to one side and the ninjas propelled themselves 12 feet in the air and then just rolled when they hit the ground. They could also do these crazy backflips with out running. It was something to behold.
Here are Leena and I as fearful ninjas.
Wow, what a day!