Adults Descend on Ninja Village!

Col and I visited the Ninja Village in Togakushi on Saturday. Basically, the Ninja Village is a small, rustic amusement park in the middle of the woods and the mountains. It's an amusement park for kids and it's supposed to allow them to feel what it's like to be a "ninja" and experience "ninja training." You can rent ninja clothes, throw sharp, metal ninja stars at targets, climb the sides of buildings, walk across rope bridges, and explore "ninja houses" that are filled with trap doors and dark mazes.

The Ninja Village was incredibly dangerous and I almost fell from rope bridges and rooftops many times. The whole time I kept saying, "Sweet mother of God, this is soooo dangerous! If this were in America, this place would be sued by long lines of angry parents!" There are no railings anywhere, kids can climb up onto the rooftops of many buildings, and children are generally encouraged to swing plastic ninja swords with reckless abandon at any passerby who dares to even blink the wrong way at a young ninja-in-training. Needless to say, this place is a lot of fun if you are 24 years-old and jealous of 4 year-olds with ninja costumes and swords.

left: Me defying gravity in the Ninja House













left: Col being smacked by a Ninja Gorilla while riding a Ninja Horse. This thing jiggles back and forth when you push a button. When I sat on it, it made a grinding noise and just stopped.

We were the only ones who sat on this silly contraption and exploited it for its seemingly obvious sexual suggestiveness. Everyone else stared at us while we laughed our asses off posing for absurd pictures.




left: Death at the hands of the Blue Ninja.

















left: Summer dusk in Nagano after ninja fun.













left: We passed a temple on the way home and got out to take some pictures. If you look closely, you can see the mountains peeking up through the mist in the background.