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Hanging Out With Ninjas in Iga-Ueno

GoddessCarlie — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:16:50 +0000

One place I loved on my trip to Japan in November 2008 was Iga-Ueno, specifically the Ninja Museum. Iga Ueno is near Nara in the Mei Prefecture. It is a little bit tricky to get to, but only in that you have to swap trains a couple of times. The way we got there was:

From Osaka we took the JR Yamatoji Line from Namba to Kamo – in the mornings direct trains to Kamo depart from Namba, but otherwise from Osaka station. All trains aparently depart from Tenoji Station as well.
Kamo station is three stops after Nara, about 15 mins from Nara. From Kamo station swap trains. The next train is a little one or two car train on the JR Kansai Line. Take this train for five stations, 35mins to the Iga Ueno station.
From here you take a cute ninja decorated train to Ueno-shi, 3rd station along and about five minutes to get there.
Hint: don’t get all the “iga”s and “ueno”s confused!

I think overall the trip cost around 1530yen one way.

A short walk from the station is the Ninja Museum. It cost 700yen to get in. First up is a cool demonstation area where a female takes you through some of the tricks ninjas have in their house. They changed all the signs to English and the girl spoke in English to us, she was pretty good. We got to swing around in hidden doors and look out peep holes.

After that we went down stairs into a museum area. Here there was a movie playing as well as lots of info in English as well as Japanese about ninjas.

From there you can pay 200yen to watch a ninja show! It is well worth it. Here is a video with some highlights:

As you can see the show was in Japanese. One guy did say to us that he could do it in English but his English wasn’t very good – we said it was “大丈夫” – daijoubu! It’s OK. The show was really enjoyable, I do recommend it!

Museum Opening Hours:
Daily 9:00 to 17:00, except from December 29 through January 1.

Show Times:
Every hour from 11:00 to 15:00.
March-November: Daily except most Tuesdays and some irregular holidays.

Official Website (in English)

Check out my Iga Ueno gallery for more pictures!

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Full House Dubbed in Japanese

GoddessCarlie — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:34:43 +0000

While in my hotel one night (in Osaka) I decided to watch a bit of TV and Full House was on, dubbed.

I filmed a little bit of it in the following clip – and yay, I can understand one joke. Haha. I haven’t seen Full House in years.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

A Night In Osaka

GoddessCarlie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:42:37 +0000

I love Osaka at night. We were staying at Dotonbori and it is just awesome at night. Lots of people, bright lights, loud noises. Great food, and not so great food… Warning, lots of photos in this post!

Here’s a video of us coming back to our hotel room after riding the Hep 5 Ferris Wheel, and some of Osaka at night.

After a little rest from all the excitement of the day, the sun set and it was time to go out for some food and excitement. The above photo was our view from our hotel, the Hearton Hotel as the sun went down.

There are these long covered streets that go on forever filled with shops! It is a shopper’s dream. Too bad I was with non-shoppers and didn’t have as much money as I would have liked thanks to a bad exchange rate!

Uniqlo was recommended to us as a good cheap shop to go to to buy clothes. It actually reminded me of Cotton On, for those of us who live in a place where Cotton On is. Sort of generic plain clothing, but a huge store. Prices were so so as well. I mean, cheap in the way that Cotton On is cheap, not Supre cheap. Sorry I don’t have better examples but I can only explain things from my own world view!

At the circular bridge area after the shopping street and before the big food/lights area.

Well, I guess you could say this is the beginning of the big lights area.

The famous running man, the first photo in this post, was also here. This is where the first section of my video above was filmed.

One thing that I really noticed about Osaka was all the bikes! They were everywhere. Makes me because I am a bike person too. No, not motorbikes, push bikes.

I don’t have a photo of one, but the bikes here have stands that come down from both sides of the wheel, which is way better than them coming down from one side of the wheel like they do here. Bikes are always falling over here in Australia.

This was a line to one of the Takoyaki stands. Maybe the mistake I made when I ate takoyaki was that I didn’t line up here.

Big crab (note: lucky I proof read this) that moves. Aparently powered by bicycles. Wouldn’t surprise me.

In case you are unsure, we are now in the part with loud noises and lots of lights.

The way to advertise in Japan is to have bright flashing lights and loud music. Louder music, so you don’t get drowned out by the advertisement next to you.

Ramen. Mmmmm. I miss cheap, awesome, delicious ramen.

One great thing about obviously being a tourist/foreigner is that many people handing out flyers ignored us.

I most definitely recommend Osaka for a shopping enthusiast.

Hot food vending machine. Is actually a microwave that cooks frozen food. I wish we had more vending machines here in Australia, they are the best idea ever. I need an everything vending machine down the end of my street.

For dinner we had some yakisoba. Mmmmm.

Yes, I’m left handed.

And thus was our night adventures in Osaka! I was too exhausted to do much more – I had waaaaay too much excitement. If you want to see more awesome photos (huh) check out my Osaka gallery.

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Awesome Youtube Vloggers

GoddessCarlie — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:27:32 +0000

Here is a list of some of my favourite people who blog, but with videos, hence the name “vlog”. It excludes those really annoying people who get really popular… you know who I’m talking about.

tokyocooney

OK, so this guy is popular and perhaps a bit annoying, but I like his videos a lot. He is working in Japan as both a comedian and within the film industry. Thus, his videos are quite good and funny.

myargonauts

A guy living in the middle of no where who is on the JET programme. He has some great videos about both the JET programme and sumo.

Also check out TaishaJason which has some more personal stuff about living in Japan and Jason himself.

ProfASAr

If you like to learn about learning languages, I recommend having a look at this guy. He is a polyglot so I guess that makes him knowledgeable about learning languages! Some people will find him dry, but I love to listen.

Bonus Video With Nothing To Do With Japan

Here are two comedians from Australia in LA trying to recruit people for their gang.

Algorithm March Video

GoddessCarlie — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:24:25 +0000

More about the Algorithm March…

Eagle Creek Packing Cube Video

GoddessCarlie — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:00:37 +0000

More about my cube…

Best Dance Ever – video

GoddessCarlie — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:18:17 +0000

More…

Best Dance Ever

GoddessCarlie — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:17:08 +0000

I just spent over an hour trying to find this video (I may or may not be exaggerating)

I love this dance. Last year when I saw it I tried to convince my friends that we could do a similar dance on the streets as I believe we would make a pretty penny for it. Would anyone like to dance with me?

Densha Otoko – Movie – Trailer

GoddessCarlie — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:35:25 +0000

Densha Otoko Review and Caps…

Sugar x Life Manga Review Video

GoddessCarlie — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:42:15 +0000

Comment on review…

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Hanging Out With Ninjas in Iga-Ueno

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