The day's itinerary is to visit Koka and Konan, both Ninja towns... :) I couldn't get any map to guide us there..
This was the first time I've been out of Tokyo and be in the Japan countryside. And frankly, I love it.. It was peace and quiet, with the vast rice fields and mountains as far as the eyes can see... And so we walked..
Took us about 30min to get to the Ninja Estate.. and seriously I was kinda disappointed by the sight of the so-called Ninja village.. It was just a typical Japanese house that has some of the 'traps' or trap-doors built in and some shelves with some ninja artifacts on display.. Although it was fun crawling and climbing through those secret passages, I was expecting more.. Maybe it was more fun for the kids than adults.. The kids got to change into Ninja clothes and had fake swords as weapon..
Some of the artifacts (real thing or not, I have no idea) on display/sale... For those who know me would know that I am fascinated by swords and guns (or at least the replicas), thus it was no surprised that I bought a small samurai sword.. :)
One of the guides, an ojiisan was trying very earnestly to explain the history and background of Ninjas to us, but it was a great pity that our (still) poor mastery of the Japanese language had limited our understanding of what he was trying to convey.. In the end we had to give up trying to make sense of what he was saying and just wandered off on our own..
We rested a while and asked for further directions on how to get to our next destination, the Ninja Village.. Somehow the people in the Ninja Estate don't seem to know where we wanna go and suggested that we go to another place with a Ninja Museum.. but all of us are determined to go to Ninja Village.. So all of us decided to get to Koka (甲賀) Station and ask the Station Master for directions..
As Raila-chan refused to walk in the hot sun back to Konan (甲南) Station, Kim-chan accompanied her to call for a taxi. The guys and me decided to walk back to the station taking the same route we came..
Then we manage to get on the train to Konan (甲南) Station. Luckily for us, the Station Master at Konan (甲南) Station knew where we wanna go and even told us that there is a free transport from the Station to the Ninja Village. He was very kind to even call the Ninja Village and arranged for us to be picked up! We waited almost an hour for the van..
The Ninja Village was again, to me at least, a disappointment.. Again, I was expecting more, especially with its 1000yen admission fee.. The whole place was quite run-down, with many of the places and routes overrun by weeds and negligence. That place may have seen its glorious days perhaps some two decades ago.. With the 1000yen admission fee, we still had to pay 300yen to try the Shiriken, which none of us did.. Alex-san and Chua-san tried the flying-fox, which was kinda run-down too, with mud all over the place... we spent slightly more than 1 hour there..
We got back to Konan (甲南) Station around 4pm and took the train back to Kyoto.. Since Raila-chan wanted to rest early for the next day, we parted ways in Kyoto Station. The 4 of us went to have dinner at one of the restaurants selling curry.. It was a good satisfying meal for the day.. Later we decided to do Karaoke at one of the Karaoke Lodge near our hotel, after all of us had washed up...
Went back to the hotel and had a good shower.. Rested until 7:15pm before making our way to the Karaoke place.. Since only Alex-san has been to a Karaoke once, we didnt know what to expect and told the guy in-charged that we will sing for 2 hours, which will cost us about 4200yen.. pretty reasonable price for 4 person..
And so we sang.. I wasn't in the best mood the whole day and this karaoke session was like the last chance to make my day.. and so I SANG!! :D I think I sang the most songs that night, while Kim-chan sang the least as she kept being interrupted by phone calls.. Although the choices of Chinese songs are very limited and the music videos are non-original, I just kept requesting for songs.. My throat was beginning to hurt due to the extended exposure of summer sun during the day, but I just kept singing.. hahahaha... Think I sang almost 50% of the time.. with Chua-san in 2nd place and Alex-san in 3rd.. In the end we extended one more hour, making it 3 hours.. :p
Think I would have continue singing had we not have an early day the next day.. as I had decided not to worry so much about whether the trip is going smoothly as planned or not anymore, I slept much better that night..
Thus ended the 2nd Day in Kyoto..
Click here for the photos I took during the trip...
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