IGA, Mie — The tourist association of Iga, Mie Prefecture, a city known for its historical ties with ninja, has launched a program to give tourists the feeling of being ninja by displaying replicas of items from the local Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in hotel rooms.
The Iga-Ueno Tourist Association, which runs the museum, has named the program Ninpak, a play on the words ninja and minpaku, the latter of which refers to private lodging.
The shuriken throwing stars and other ninja tools are displayed in hotels. The city's first hotel to join the program is the Iga Ueno City HotelIga Ueno City Hotel, which has prepared three guest rooms that meet the program's standards. Members of the press were given a look at March 28.
The association and Fujiya Co. are jointly operating the program, which is responsible for a number of display projects, which is jointly operated by the association and Fujiya Co. The enterprise started in December 2021. There was a few months before any hotel joined the program due to the novel coronaviruses.
The first three guest rooms of Ninpak are on the fourth, sixth and eighth floors of the hotel. In 2015 the partly tatami-matted rooms were opened as ninja rooms and were already fitted with various entertaining features, such as wallpaper with ninja silhouettes and makimono scrolls hidden under the floors. The rooms have been kitted out with more delightful features for guests.
In each room are elaborate replicas of ninja tools made with reference to historical ninja writings, which are displayed in a showcase on the wall. The tools vary from room to room. Firearms are on display in the fourth-floor room, while the sixth-floor room has break-in tools, such as ropes with a grappling hook, and the eighth-floor room exhibits ninja weapons such as shuriken stars and makibishi caltrops. In addition to that, andon lamps with the emblem of the Momochi, a famous Ninja family from Iga, create an atmosphere evoking ninja and their times.
The program is expected to draw many people, including non-Japanese tourists and families with children.
Tourists from Europe love our ninja rooms. Many of them take pictures in the rooms. I think the rooms will be very popular now that rooms have become more attractive with ninja tool exhibits, Iga Ueno City Hotel manager Kazuhiro Matsumoto, 37.
Reservations for the ninja rooms can be made online at https: www.greens. Co.jp lp ninja room The tourist association hopes to make Ninpak a new profitable business after the epidemic and to make such services more widely available, especially in Osaka ahead of the 2025 World Exposition in the city.