tanuki town and ninja school

Shigaraki


What: Day trip with the Yamamotos
When: May 13, 2007
Where: Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture
Info: Shigaraki is famous for pottery. It is also famous for ceramic tanuki, or raccoon dogs. If you are like me, when you hear tanuki you automatically think of Super Mario 3 (You could use the 'tanooki' suit to disappear/turn to stone?!) but I don't remember Mario looking like this...


I met the Yamamotos in Kyoto and from there we drove through the mountains. I wasn't expecting the tanuki section of town. As you can see from the photos there was an army of tanuki. All staring at you with their large, blank eyes....



They were everywhere. You could buy tanuki of every size, shape and price range. You could buy tanuki to sit in your bath tub (below)...


Or really scary tanuki urn/jug things...


And there weren't only tanuki. Anyone feel like they are being watched??


I liked these little guys...so cute...but I felt that I would have to buy a small army to get the right effect...


And the most random object I found in one warehouse....manneken pis' Japanese brother (alas Steph, he wasn't wearing a costume either...)



We had lunch in a nice terrace/garden feeling restaurant.



Then we drove up to the local museum, where they were having a tanuki exhibit, but decided to walk around the park instead. I enjoyed the taiko tanuki (below).





The weather was beautiful and I had a great time walking around the park. We saw a very organized school outing (all dressed in purple track suits) and a rather creepy leg art installation.


Inside a ceramics info centre, we found the winners of a kid's tanuki drawing contest.


This one was definitely my favourite (below). Check out those teeth and the spraying blood!

Ninja Town


Our next stop was a ninja town/training centre/museum. That's right people, we trained to be ninjas! Our first task was to get down the hill and not get stuck in the net.


At the bottom of the hill we found a school group (all dressed in small ninja outfits) who were practicing getting across a pond using floats and a rope. None of them fell in. They rocked.


Inside the first building we found all of the accessories we would need to be proper ninjas. Christopher, you would have loved it here.


I enjoyed this ninja outfit's pose. It reminded me of some armor Steph and I saw in Edinburgh Castle, which was arranged in a similar jaunty pose.


To be a proper ninja, you need your tanuki sidekick, of course (below).


This sword display (below) made me think of if a Canadian hunting lodge met a ninja. What's up with the antler sword holder?



We couldn't figure out the purpose of the shadow puppet instructions (above) but check out the wolverine-type weapon below!



After the museum part went on a tour of a ninja house, complete with secret passages, trap doors and a ton of other super cool hidden tricks. The tour guide looked like a computer programmer by day, who masqueraded by weekend as a ninja. He moved so fast around corners...it was impressive. He had skills.


Here are some purposely (yah, right) blurry photos demonstrating how to use a secret door. I can't reveal all the ninja secrets here...


And of course, no souvenir shop would be complete without stuffed tanuki who are holding swords and other ninja weapons.



The final part of our ninja training was the crucial ninja star throwing test.



Note my ninja star throwing technique...it's all in the wrist...(flick and swish?)


Now I could lie and say that those are my stars embedded in the target....but the truth is, none of mine stuck. Mine seemed to spin and then slap against the target. I still think that they would hurt if they hit you though...



We completed our training! Four new ninjas left the training centre that day...



We drove back to Kyoto by way of the bridge across Lake Biwa (Japan's largest lake). It was windy, cool and sunny and I would have liked to hang out by the lake for a while...but we had dinner reservations in Kyoto...


The Italian restaurant we went to had an amazing view of Kyoto tower and the city. We ate a ton of delicious food but the coolest was definitely the pizza bomb!

We took the train (and bikes!) back to the Yamamoto's home, where I collapsed exhausted in bed. The next morning was spent talking to Machiko and Mayumi and watching Japanese soap operas....A perfect weekend!

Yamamoto-san bought these two little guys for me and my brother. The little boy tanuki is yours, Christopher and he'll be heading back to Toronto with mom and dad! Thank you Yamamotos for a wonderful weekend! I can't wait to travel with you in August!