Tour guides

The long awaited day had arrived and, despite several emails assuring them that they were not required to give in to the arm twisting of Helpful Meddler, both girls assured me they were more than happy to spend the day practicing their English. So we set off for two amusement parks – one with the “longest slide in Japan” and the other complete with roller coasters and a petting zoo.

Tomomi and Madoka






I had said I was willing to drive if they navigated and read street signs, so they both came prepared with maps and guidebooks. What I found fascinating was how they used these aids. I’ve noticed that all maps have convenience stores and gas stations listed by name (the shell station is marked with a little yellow shell symbol, the Seven-Eleven has a “7-11”, etc). I figured it was some weird advertising deal with all the map publishers. Be that as it may, what I didn’t realize was that people actually use these as landmarks in lieu of more normal things like street names. We seriously found the first park by passing 2 Hot Spars, going over a bridge, and turning right at the 7-11. I kid you not!

When we got to the first park, I had to bite my lip not to laugh in disbelief and turn the car around immediately. The park name is officially “Twinkle Heart, Twinkle World.” Fearing that I’d made a horrible mistake, I paid the entrance fee and we drove through the 48 hectares of parkland looking for the slide (it is very pretty – it’s set up as a resort for families with children who want to escape the city and commune with nature). What the park doesn’t advertise is that although you paid the entrance fee, you also have to pay another $5 to ride on the slide! Despite the egregious price gouging (and serious doubts that it’s actually the longest in Japan), the slide was cool. It’s a long, snaking aluminum half-pipe that you ride down on in a plastic sled, luge style. You have a brake (if you’re wuss enough to use it) but not a whole lot of control. Apparently I weigh a little more than the girls, because I kept running into them on the way down.

We then got the girls their very first ever pony rides – once around the ring on a pony that was obviously happier eating grass in the shade than toting around unbalanced sacks of potatoes. When they asked why I wasn’t going to ride, I just looked at them in disbelief. I think my feet would have dragged on the ground if I’d tried! (not to mention that if I want to walk once around the field on a lead rope, I could probably get Little Mig to oblige just for the amusement value)

The next park was a little less successful. It’s set up as a typical summer carnival – the same type of rides, paid for with some number of tickets each. I promptly led them up to the roller coaster section, when they piped up with “oh, I couldn’t ride that! It’s too scary!” Then why did you agree to come to (and pay for) a park who’s only real attraction is two roller coasters??? I mean, I’m the first to admit that I’m a coaster wimp, and think twice about getting slung around upside down. But if I agree to go to an amusement park, I do expect to ride just about everything they have at least once. Not these girls. Even the tea cups were deemed too scary. We rode the disneyland train (complete with a scratchy “choo choo” sound track and statues of the 7 dwarves at the railroad crossing) and the Dumbo flying cars instead.

Then we had to check out the zoo (about then is when I realized that I’d become very used to sight seeing on my own – there is a certain luxury to leaving when you feel like it). Modern zoos tend to have habitats approximating the animals’ natural homes, lots of room for them to roam, and places for the animals to go when they don’t feel like being stared at any more. This zoo was the old fashioned kind – lots of concrete poured in bumpy ground patterns, little tiny enclosures, and really hot, unhappy animals. I’m not sure if the penguins or the big cats were sadder (it was easily over 90deg out). I very much hope that the zoo has an annex somewhere outside the city so that the animals only do short stints in those conditions. And I’m very sorry that any money of mine is contributing to it.

Hot and tired and depressed (at least, I was), we headed for home. To do the girls justice, they didn’t giggle once all day. But the typical Japanese woman’s laugh is this high-pitched titter that’s almost as annoying, as is the habit of clapping to applaud any clever statement or act. And one more squealed chorus of “kawaii“ (pronounced "kah - why - e - e" and translates to “oh, how CUUUUUUUUTE”) was going to get them dumped on the side of the road.