Crate & Barrel, Japan Division: There's A Ninja Everywhere You Look

While I'm waiting for the rest of the pictures from my parents, I'd like to jump forward in time a few days to just after they left. Somehow I lost my passport (I know, I know...) and I was staying near Osaka with a friend on the weekend of April 3rd until the US Consulate opened on Monday the 5th. That gave us Sunday to take a two hour local train trip into the heart of Mie prefecture to the town of Iga Ueno and its ninja festival.

We went to meet and on the recommendation of a friend of mine from Ishikawa, Stephen Phelan. A free-lance Irish journalist, Stephen's girlfriend is a JET and he's taking the opportunity of living in Japan to write a book about ninja. He was visiting Iga Ueno to write a travel piece for The Guardian.

The day was just about perfect. The weather was warm and breezy and clear, and Iga Ueno on a Sunday is a wonderfully quite, sleepy place. The town bills itself as the birthplace of the ninja, but Stephen was able to explain that the word "ninja" is actually a catch-all for many kinds of assassins, spies, and mercenaries in the Edo period of Japan.

You might expect that the town would have a really serious, authentic approach to ninja, but in fact it's quite campy and heavily influenced by pop culture. The festival runs through May 5th, and if you dress like a ninja you get free train travel all over Mie prefecture.

Around the castle grounds there were a few food booths and a live demonstration of ninja skills that was a distant cousin of the caped knife-thrower at a county fair. Much more theater than ninja, but still entertaining. A ninja museum had some interesting artifacts and information (much of it fudged, Stephen said).

A chain mail vest that has been put on by thousands of snickering gaijin before me.

The skills demonstration. Couldn't get any good pictures of the action, but there were low-budget pyrotechnics and exaggerated slapstick duels. Oh yes.

The best part of the day, however, came when we ventured into the town. Ninja were everywhere. It was like a middle of the day Halloween, with kids and adults and dogs dressed up everywhere. Ninja logos were on most of the businesses, the trains, even some street signs. Hilariously awkward ninja mannequins were "hidden" around the city.

No words.

Ninjas on patrol.

Ninja Abbey Road.

Can you spot the ninja???

And then we went to the ninja cafe.

The owner of this cafe was one of the most remarkable and hilarious people I have ever met. Dressed in a camo-patterned ninja outfit, he immediately came up to talk to us as much as he could, and proceeded to give us free snacks. Then he started bringing out the guns--19th century Japanese guns, including a tiny Derringer-like one and an incredibly heavy cannon-like one.

Stephen with the cannon.

An unfortunate picture of my friend Ruth, but a good one of the guns.

Peashooter.

Then he sidled up to the table in a completely different outfit and wearing a wig, taking several of us by surprise to demonstrate the ninja value of disguise. After a while he told us about his grandfather, who he said was a "real" ninja. He said he had his sword, but after World War II it became illegal to carry a real sword without a license, so he got a fake sword to show the police when they came by. He showed us the real sword.

It was a bit rusty, but it was a perfectly balanced and breathtakingly authentic feeling katana. This fanboy, for one, was completely swooning over it. The guy was goofy and over the top and campy but another example of the wonderful generosity of spirit I've found often here.