Kitty vacant

I'm stealth-blogging at school again. As I write, they are boarding up the windows with planks of wood. “Are we expecting another typhoon?” I asked. “No, no,” came the reply, “it's for the snow”. Evidently the snowdrifts here can reach window-shattering proportions. Awesome.

Anyway, enough of that. Let's get back to my family's visit.

Monday: Monday morning was my family's official appointment to meet the head of the board of the education (the gentleman who presented me with my contract back in August) at City Hall. I think it is fair to say they were bricking it, and the chief exporter of bricks was Blair-kun. My family grilled me about etiquette, and I had to confess that I didn't really have a clue, especially about the finer points of omiyage (souvenir) giving. We dressed as smartly as we could, I taught them a couple of polite Japanese greetings (“hajimemashite” and “yoroshiku onegaishimasu”), and we went for it. So eager was I to be punctual that I overshot and arrived a somewhat awkward 20 minutes early. The meeting itself was a little tricky because no-one there was properly bilingual, but we muddled through - my parents' idea to bring brochures from their respective places of work as visual aids was a lifesaver. After about 15 minutes of bowing, handshaking and green tea sipping, we were finished, with no significant diplomatic gaffes. Job's a good 'un.

That afternoon the two generations of Stewarts went their separate ways. Mum and dad took the train to the charming little city of Yonezawa for some sightseeing, while Blair and I went to a theme park called Lina World. The most notable thing about this place is that it is affiliated with Sanrio, the company behind the kawaii empire that is Hello Kitty. So one couldn't move in the park for likenesses of the mouthless feline and her various cutesy friends. Andrea, I was thinking of you.

Disneyland it was not. However, it would be unfair to dismiss the place as entirely wack, since it did have a couple of decent rollercoasters. The trouble was that it was a rainy afternoon in November, and there couldn't have been more than about 20 people there, giving the whole thing a slightly 28 Days Later kind of vibe. There's something inherently depressing about a theme park where the staff comfortably outnumber the customers; I suspect even Alton Towers would seem a bit bleak in those circumstances. But on the plus side, there were no queues, meaning that one could easily compare and contrast the experiences at the front and back of a rollercoaster (for the uninitiated, the front is generally more visually exhilarating, while the back offers greater G-forces).

A few attractions are worthy of particular comment. The haunted house was genuinely unnerving, for two reasons. One, there was no vehicle, with the punters simply walking through it. For my money, this makes it much more immersive and frightening. Second, it was themed as a haunted shrine, and the fact that it was another culture's spooky cliches instead of the standard skeletons, ghosts and vampires made it all the more unsettling. I think maybe the Japanese just do creepy really well.

The nadir of Lina World was Carnival Fantasy, which was a very low-rent It's a small world rip-off, with primitive automata decked out in various national costumes (including, hilariously, Britain). The prize for oddest attraction undoubtedly goes to the room that was kept at a temperature of -20°C and contained lots of oversized foodstuffs, the idea being that you were inside a giant fridge. I mean, that's not even internally consistent for a start. Who keeps beer and milk at -20°C? Having said that, it was quite well executed, and -20°C is impressively cold. I just couldn't help but imagine the conversation that must have taken place in some Yamagata pub a few years ago: “A mate of mine has a walk-in freezer he's trying to get rid of, know anyone that might want it?” “Hold on, I have an idea...”.

The most awkward moment came when we attempted to board the Amore Express (yes, the name should have tipped us off). The attendant seem reluctant to let us on, but I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell us. After calling over someone who spoke marginally better English, I established that the ride first went forward, then it went into reverse and canopies emerged to cover the cars, giving the occupants some privacy. So, not really appropriate for two brothers. Now, maybe I just have intimacy issues (I definitely do) but this strikes me as just about the creepiest thing I've ever heard of. Copping an illicit feel on a ferris wheel or whatever is one thing, but that fact that this is a park-sanctioned opportunity for awkward adolescent fumbles really troubles me. It just doesn't seem right to have what is essentially a miniature seedy motel on rails surrounded by that many images of the innocent Kitty-chan.

Tuesday: Tuesday morning was the one work commitment I couldn't get out of; it was to be my kindergarten teaching debut. I was quite nervous about this, since I don't even have elementary school experience, and junior high to kindergarten is arguably an even bigger leap than undergraduate informatics to junior high English. It went pretty well considering – Head, shoulders, knees and toes went down a storm, since kids that age instinctively mimic anything you do. My colour-based games weren't quite so successful: no matter how simple you try to make a game, trying to explain it to 36 preschoolers who can't speak English is always going to be tricky. Anyway, I'm not the kind of person who is prone to gushing about the cuteness of small children, but I did find these kids extremely cute, especially when they knelt on the floor instead of sitting cross-legged.

With that weight off my mind, we went to Tendo in the afternoon to check out an art gallery in a sake brewery, which was a pleasant change of pace. There were two featured artists, one of which – Saito Shinichi – I really liked. Our parting gift from the gallery was a free sample of a weird yeasty paste they sell, which I'm pretty sure is a by-product of the brewing process. It wasn't the nicest thing I've tasted in Japan. I'm unclear on what one is supposed to do with it, although I think the lady said something about adding it to miso soup.

After that was a trip to Sagae's Cherryland. We didn't have time to see everything this place had to offer, so maybe I'm not doing it justice, but it seemed like a tourist attraction that was missing the attraction. By that I mean that it had all the cafes, restaurants and gift shops that one would expect to find surrounding your average tourist trap, but without any ostensible raison d'etre other than a vague cherry theme (the area is famed for its cherry production). The reason we went was that my guidebook said they had an ice cream parlour with 100 different flavours, but as far as I could tell only about thirty were in evidence. One of these was a troubling dark grey colour, and surprisingly my Japanese was good enough to work out that it was sesame flavour. I went for a sesame and cherry combo (I felt I had to really, being in Cherryland), and it was delicious.