Okay, this is the post I’m most excited about. I took the train to Iga, and it was awesome. Well, the first train part wasn’t so here we go…
The mayor wears a ninja outfit!
Trains, how do they work?
HOW DO I KEEP MESSING THIS UP?? You know what… So I got on the wrong train. Fortunately it was still headed to the same place as the other one, but the train attendant was having trouble understanding me even though I said what I think was pretty clear. He told me to get off at a stop that was 1 further away than I wanted so that I could get on the correct train. So I got to sit down in the business car section, which was kind of nice tbh, but it was so embarrassing that I got on the wrong train. So then I went to get off in Nanbari Station and they were like yelling at me to get back onto the train and motioning for me to board. I ran over and said, “Don’t worry. This is where I wanted to go.” In Japanese and they were like, baffled so I was like, “it’s ok (thumbs up), don’t worry! Nanbari is where I want to go. This station is good. It’s o.k.!” And they finally understood that I wasn’t trying to get onto that other train at this point.
So now I’m in Nanbari and I hop on another train that brings me to Iga-Nanbe station. From there I take the Iga line to Iga station. We’re like 2 hours into train rides at this point, but it was fine. It’s all worth it to me. I get to see the countryside. Iga is actually a pretty hopping town. It’s way bigger than I thought it would be and Iga-Ueno castle was really nice!
I think my favorite part of Iga is how heavy they lean into the Ninja thing. They have stuffed ninja just like, in random spots in the train there was a little ninja doll sitting on the luggage rack. In the Castle there was one clinging to the wall on the second floor. It was awesome because you don’t notice them at first lol. Oh and in 2014 they painted the first NINJA TRAIN! They are trying to revive tourism to Iga, and it’s working (on me at least).
The Ninja Museum
So I am walking to the park and I’m like, “I’m probably the only tourist here.” Wrong! There was a french girl who was hitchhiking the Japanese countryside. I am very jealous. It seems like a ton of fun. Then I get to the museum and there’s a tour of the ninja house starting in 15 minutes. I’m so excited at this point. I was the only non-Japanese speaking person in the tour. It was really cool though, he’d like, explain stuff in both languages for me and demonstrated false floorboards, secret stairs, revolving doors, all kinds of stuff. It was pretty awesome. I didn’t take any pictures though because they said you need prior permission. The museum itself was cool. Like 3/4 of the items had English explanations as well. I knew a fair bit of it already, having been interested in Ninja for a long time. But I did learn some new stuff too. All in all, it was cool as hell.
Iga-Ueno Castle
I took a bunch of pictures of the castle here. It’s incredibly small for what you think of when you think “Castle”, but admission was like 600 yen so I went inside and in there is a ton of cool stuff and history about the castle and whatnot. It was actually really nice to see it all.
Osaka again
After that jaunt (I spent probably 4 hours there and 4 hours on the train total, so I was glad to be back in Osaka). It’s late though. I’ll write more about Osaka when I’m on the plane tomorrow. Right now I’m in the airport and it’s 1:15 am. My flight leaves at 8:00am or so. I just didn’t wanna have to find a place to stay the night.
I’ll elaborate on this post, but I’ll also see you in Singapore!
