This morning we discovered we kind of had a free day. Having been templed out we didn’t feel the need to visit any more… So after a very slow start, we jumped into a taxi and went to the Manga Museum, which to be honest was more of a library than a museum. Not a huge amount to see other than lots of manga magazines in Japanese. There was an option to have a manga style caricature made of us, but that would’ve meant sitting for 30 minutes for the artist - neither of us felt we could manage that! Deciding it was time for a coffee, we looked for the cafe - which (typically) was closed. Not the end of the world - there was a Starbucks down the road.
Over coffee we started to formulate a plan for the rest of the day. Having seen that the Ninja museum wasn’t that far away, we decided to head over.
The museum didn’t really look like a museum, and cost around £17 each (which seemed pretty steep) but we were committed so what the hell! We joined a group for a guided tour and demonstration with Ninja weapons! First up we watched a samurai demonstration from a sensai trained in samurai. After that we got to play with the weapons. We were shown the throwing stars - normally these were made out of metal, fortunately these were just hard plastic. We were lined up in front of a foam target wall and were shown various throwing techniques. I think Carol-Ann managed to get 1 in out of 4 attempts (in 1 of her attempts she mistakenly lobbed it at the guide!). I managed to get all of mine in (clearly I am ninja!). Next we were shown the blowpipe. Carol-Ann excelled at this, managing to get a bullseye on her first attempt. I clearly had a faulty dart as none of my attempts would stick into the target (clearly faulty equipment!).
After playing with the weapons we had a detailed tour of the rest of the museum which provided a really good insight into the Ninja and Samurai history.
After the museum we wandered down the pedestrianised area and looked at some shops. Carol-Ann found a Lush and bought some bath bombs (which made her happy!), whilst I had a look in an airsoft shop and was not allowed to buy some guns (which mane me sad). All this was thirsty work so we decided to get another drink… we found another Starbucks - but the queue was enormous! By this point Carol-Ann had set her heart on a Strawberry Frappuccino, so I looked on the map for another Starbucks - there was one around the corner so we headed there. After a coffee boost we grabbed a taxi back to the Ryoken.
We’ll venture out soon for dinner - we’ve decided on Pizza.
