Tokyo's really, really real ninja hideouts
Fact or fiction? Tokyo wouldn't exist without the efforts of real-life ninja.
Fact -- 100 percent fact. And they’re still here today, in a manner of speaking.
Don't get us wrong. There aren't any secret training grounds or black-clad assassins leaping from rooftop to rooftop (if only). The signs are subtler than that, but they're definitely there, hiding in plain sight.
So forget the silly Ninja Akasaka restaurant, the sillier Nikko Edo-Mura ninja shows, the foam-rubber shuriken throwing stars on sale in Asakusa’s Nakamise souvenir stands. This is your chance to tread in the two-toed footprints of Japan's masters of darkness, right through the heart of the city.
On second thoughts, maybe picking up some of those throwing stars wouldn't be a bad idea.
1. Harajuku
Let’s turn the clock back a few years to 1597. That’s when soon-to-be Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu moved to the city, bringing a brigade of ninja bodyguards along with him. The place these fearsome fighters were quartered just so happens to correspond to Tokyo’s poshest, most-fashionable address today.
Over the years, they fortified the area into a maze of tiny, tough-to-invade streets now known as Ura-Harajuku, where assassins and spies have given way to shoppers and Gothic Lolitas.
Make your way past them and you’ll find Onden Jinja (The Shrine of the Hidden Field), where the ninja once carried out their religious duties. It’s still standing proud, more than four centuries later.
Onden Jinja, 5-26-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku. Google Maps.
2. The Hanzomon subway line
A ninja runs through Tokyo. His name is Hattori Hanzo, aka Hanzo the Demon. He was a master ninja who served as Tokugawa Ieaysu’s right-hand spymaster. You may be familiar with the name: Quentin Tarantino resurrected it in his movie “Kill Bill.â€
Hanzo proved so handy that Tokugawa gave him VIP access to the castle via a special back entrance.
Known as Hanzomon (Hanzo’s Gate), it’s part of the Imperial Palace today -- and gave one of the city’s most-traveled subway lines its name.
Hanzomon Station. Google Maps.
More on CNNGo: Lethal weapon: Hanging with the world's last living ninja
