We're heading into festival season now and it kicked off for us with the yearly Ashiya festival.

Unfortunately the weather was against us this year and it poured down on the Saturday so we held off going until the Sunday, when thankfully the weather had improved a bit.

Although it does have a musical stage by the river, with bands playing throughout the day including a surprisingly large amount of Country and Western groups, Ashiya festival is essentially about wandering around the food, drink and charity stalls, eating, drinking and discovering hidden gems amongst all the junk like the Attack on the Queen DVD (Japanese title) I picked up for a bargain 100Yen! Well, actually after watching it maybe it was a little overpriced but you live and learn.

Ashiya Festval

As usual there were a couple of wine stalls, so I tried some which were pretty nice but we'd just come from a wine tasting so I was pretty wined out by then.

Also met our local celebrity baker (Mr Bigot, french guy who makes great bread - he was the one twisting my arm to drink more wine actually), and also took a picture of the city mayor. He looked like a nice enough chap.

Ashiya City Mayor

Didn't stay too long as it was a "school night" and I had work the next day.

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But now, the wine tasting. Our first ever and a lot of fun it was too. We tried about 20 wines for just ￥2000 and had some cheese too. Check out my wine blog for more info.