When travelling I always like to learn something new so when I heard about the Samurai Museum in Tokyo I was stoked. But then I found out it was temporary closed. But then when I found out there was a Samurai Museum in Kyoto that offers a Samurai Experience my first order of business was convincing the wife. To my surprise she was totally up for it. So, I booked a timeslot with the Samurai Ninja Museum and made sure I selected the Samurai Experience. They also offer a Ninja Experience but our time was limited and I figured the Samurai Experience would be enough.
The price was reasonable at 2700 Yen a person (about $25 CAD) and it was a nice 20 min-walk from our Ryokan in the Gion District. We signed up early so enjoyed the morning walk with a hot coffee fresh from the vending machine and a quick breakfast on the way. We got there and they started us off with an introductory trivia quiz for fun while we waited for the rest of our group. The first part of the experience was a walk through the museum with our guide, who was dressed as a ninja. The guide provided information about the history of the samurai, briefly about ninjas, and about samurai weapons and armor. The guide was friendly, informative and engaging, asking our group trivia questions throughout the experience. We learned a lot, but it was a bit short and he didn’t talk about everything in the museum. There was a chance before and after the experience to look at and read the exhibits we missed if we our hunger for information wasn’t quenched. The museum itself was small but it was interesting, showing the different armor the samurai wear, different weapons, including a katana wall and lots of infographic posters.
At the end of the museum tour, those who signed up for the Ninja Experience left to continue their portion of the tour somewhere else and our ninja guide took us, who oddly signed up for the Samurai Experience, to practice throwing mock ninja stars. Our guide taught us how to throw them, gave us some practice throws then we had a short competitive game. Even though I was the best throughout the experience, when it really mattered, to my luck, the old lady of the group beat me by one point and won a ninja star to take home as a souvenir.
The final portion of the Samurai Experience was trying on the samurai armor. The armor was located at a different location where we had to walk a couple of minutes to get to. That’s okay because it was a quick walk and was in the Shinkyogoku Shopping District, which we checked out after trying on the armor. The armor wasn’t real or authentic but was worth it for the pictures with the cool photo backdrops. They also had a souvenir shop where they sold decorative Katanas and daggers. And of course, anyone who knows me could have predicted that I would have purchased something. I couldn’t fit the Katana in my luggage but got a dagger set which make a bad ass decoration in my office full of souvenirs and historic artifacts.
Overall, the experience was pretty good. I learned some cool and interesting information and the experience was engaging. It was a bit short and a bit gimmicky, but I had fun. For anyone who likes battles and warriors it is a must do in Japan but if that isn’t your thing, you can probably skip the Samurai Experience.
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