Queues for the cute at Japantown fest’s Hello Kitty food truck

Urania Chien (left) operates the Hello Kitty Cafe food truck with her husband Charlie during the 48th annual Cherry Blossom Festival at Japantown in San Francisco, Calif. on Saturday, April 11, 2015. Urania Chien (left) operates the Hello Kitty Cafe food truck with her husband Charlie during the 48th annual Cherry Blossom Festival at Japantown in San Francisco, Calif. on Saturday, April 11, 2015. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Queues for the cute at Japantown fest’s Hello Kitty food truck 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

The line for the Hello Kitty Cafe food truck stretched for more than a block down Post Street on Saturday as fans waited for up to two hours to buy doughnuts with bows, rainbow-colored macaroons and other treats featuring the mouthless yet relentlessly cute Japanese cartoon cat.

The Southern California food truck, which was making its first appearance in San Francisco at the 48th Annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, was a clear draw for many of legions of festival attendees, and not just for prepubescent females.

“It’s just happiness. But it’s youthful happiness,” said Valentina Linsangan, 51, trying to explain her fascination with the cat, which was introduced in Japan in 1974 and brought to the United States in 1976.

For Linsangan, who has a Hello Kitty-theme kitchen in her Pacifica home, waiting that long for a box of Hello Kitty petit fours wasn’t that big a deal. Decked out in Hello Kitty shoes, socks, T-shirt, jacket and earrings and sporting a Hello Kitty manicure, she admitted she was also wearing Hello Kitty underwear.

The event, considered the second-largest cherry blossom festival behind only Washington, D.C., is expected to draw more than 200,000 people to San Francisco’s Japantown, one of three remaining Japantowns in the United States.

Surprisingly devoid of cherry blossoms, the festival features cultural performances, martial arts, live bands, exhibits and demonstrations of Japanese flower arranging, called ikebana, as well as calligraphy, bonsai, origami and doll making.

Food booths selling imagawayaki — described as “pancake-like with a sweet bean paste filling” — Spam musubi, teriyaki burgers, udon, sushi and other Japanese-inspired dishes drew long lines as people cosplaying as their favorite manga and anime characters and others dressed as Japanese schoolgirls strolled the circuit.

In a refreshingly low-tech sight, a group of teenage boys gathered at a booth to perfect their skills at kendama, an ancient cup-and-ball Japanese game that involves a ken, or sword, and tama, or ball, connected by a string. The basic goal is to catch the ball in the cup or on the spike, but a variety of more advanced tricks can be performed.

“It’s a skill thing. It’s simple, but you have to be creative with it,” said Alberto Tuvo, 14, of South San Francisco. He could do it a bunch of times in a row, so this clearly wasn’t his first time trying kendama. “It takes a lot of practice. It’s addictive.”

Back at the Hello Kitty food truck, people still waited. And waited. And occasionally squealed with delight when they reached the front of the line.

“It’s like total cuteness overload,” said the appropriately named Marie Adorable, 28, of San Francisco, as she waited her turn. “It kind of just makes you feel like a little kid again.”

The festival is held this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, as well as next weekend from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Japantown at Post and Buchanan streets.

The festival’s grand parade is at 1 p.m. next Sunday, beginning at the Civic Center and ending up in Japantown. Taiko drummers, classical and folk dance troupes, and colorful floats will roam the streets.

The parade and most of the festival's events are free. For a full schedule, visit http://sfcherryblossom.org.

Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver