More on a whim than anything else, a friend and I made our way down to Mie prefecture a while ago to a small city/town of Iga. It truly was the backwoods of Japan, but we weren’t there to sight-see, we came for the Ninja Festival! 

Ninja Festa is a month-long event held in the town whose citizens believe their ancestors are ninjas. We toured a ninja house, complete with secret doors and booby traps, wandered a bamboo forest, and even saw a beautiful castle that had wonderful sakura in bloom.

On top of everything, the cost of the entrance into the festival came included with full ninja-garb! Needless to say, that was truly the highlight and big draw of the event. We also got to see a full demonstration of ninja weapons and a showcase of some fighting techniques. Pretty cool.

It was a lot of fun to just wander about a small city dressed as a ninja, even if, due to some of the rain that day, participation of other Japanese people was quite scarce. Truly, it seemed that us and a small group of other foreigners were the only ones dressed up. More than one person stopped to take a picture of us out of amusement.

Getting there and back wasn’t nearly as fun, however. JR and Kintetsu lines run to where we wanted to go, but not all the trains came as often as what i’m used to, nor were some of the trains as new and well-kept as Nagoya. It was quite a change and an interesting experience to finally get out and travel the less populated, more rural Japan. That being said, I was happy to be back in Nagoya at the end of the day, albeit in regular clothes.

Location: Iga, Mie prefecture, Japan