Balloon Shapes By Cops » Ashiya

Ashiya Festival and the Pizza Selling Stormtrooper

Silentjim — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:26:58 +0000

It’s Cherry Blossom Viewing (Hanami) time in Japan at the moment (well to be honest, it’s over now, but it was a couple of weeks ago), and this means sitting under cherry blossoms, drinking sake, wine or whatever and also, the first festivals of the year (for me anyway).

Ashiya Festival 2010

(Strangely this photo is almost identical to the one I took at last years Festival – must change my snapping position for next year)

The other weekend was Ashiya Festival, which I love as:
a) It’s up the road.
b) It has wine, sake, beer and food stalls.
c) It has little old ladies selling junk for charity at ridiculously cheap prices.
d) Live Bluegrass music

Don’t ask me why, but country and bluegrass music is very popular in this city it seems. Last year they had the guy who wrote the “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack play.

This year though there was an extra special surprise…

Fancy a pizza?

A pizza selling stormtrooper!
He’s from the Japanese Garrison of the 501st Legion apparently – what do you mean you didn’t know such a thing existed?

Well I couldn’t not get my picture taken with him could I…

Stormtrooper And I

I love the face the guy behind him is pulling – got a bit of yakitori stuck or something?

Ashiya Festival and some Wine Tasting

Silentjim — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:57:46 +0000

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 ￥100!

Well, actually after watching it maybe it was a little overpriced but you live and learn.

Ashiya Festival

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.

——————————————————-

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.

Hiking? On a Monday?

Silentjim — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:55:38 +0000

The other week we went hiking! This is not something I would usually do, due to it being tiring, and, well tiring. But hiking we did. (We had a bank holiday monday so what else are you going to do?)

We walked for about an hour from our house up hill in the direction of Rokko Mountain, through the expensive neighbourhood with garages bigger than our apartment, and I was just about to ask Aki if we were near the end yet, when she told me we were nearly at the beginning!
Doh!

Then we hit the mountain proper. It was proper steep with like rock steps and stuff, and at one point there was a chain you had to hold on to to pull yourself up the really steep bit.

I felt I was going to pass out and die on at least 5 occasion – excessive exercise is not something I’ve chosen to do since…um…anyway…on we trekked.

However it was worth it, as the of Ashiya and the surrounding area was gorgeous.

View of Ashiya

(Photo taken with my phone so not the best).

Our apartment is in front of those big lego looking buildings in the background).

Also we came very close to wild boar!

Baby Wild Boar

Which were very cute.

After about an hour or so from “the beginning” we got to the top, had lunch, (an onigiri – rice ball filled with fish and wrapped in seaweed) and headed down the other way to the beer vending machine at the bottom and the haagen daz shop

After my heartbeat and breathing returned to some level of normality I decided it was quite fun, and we’re off to a different part of the mountain tomorrow for some more…

Hisashiburi (Long time no see)

Silentjim — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:44:48 +0000

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had a chance to update this, apologies.

What’s happened? Well, it was cherry blossom viewing (hanami) season a couple of weeks ago so we spent a couple of days walking along the rivers (Shukugawa and Ashiyagawa) checking out the cherry blossom with hundreds of other people, and drinking sake, wine and beer and eating lots.

At Ashiya they had a world music festival (although this seemed to consist mainly of American country and blue grass – there was a guest appearance from some bloke who wrote the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, that was good).

Ashiyha Hanami

Sake!

They had a lot of stalls for food, drink and games, and I amused myself and others playing the games for kids to win prizes. You get a small paper net which you have to fish with and pick up toys (and if you want, live fish – but I didn’t fancy that). I won a cute tigger figure. Then there was a darts game, which bizarrely I got almost the highest score but only won a cheap blow dart toy, and not the Wii, DS, various guns or porn dvds – not sure how you got to win them.

Darts Champion

The big news though was we moved flat last week, into our temporary (3 month) accomodation, while they finish building our new flat. It was fairly painless although pretty nerve wracking for me. Aki stayed at the old place to clean up while I went to the new pad and greeted the moving company, gas man and newspaper man.

Pretty scary as very little English was understood on their part. Think I managed ok though. We have gas and the newspaper is being delivered.

The moving company (Breaks) were fantastic! So quick and efficient! They were even running back to the van to get the next box. They cleared the old place in about an hour and filled up the new one in about the same time. Highly recommended if you’re ever moving in Japan.

Went to Kyoto on my day off last week to see Andy and Haruna’s new baby Lili – gorgeous. (Hi Andy). 5 weeks old and very cute.

Other than that, just been settling in and working overtime. Aki had a few days off for Golden Week (we don’t get that at NoVacation) in fact it can get busier at that time as most Japanese people are off and want to speak English then.

The Rock Bar, the Baker and the Politician

Silentjim — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:30:04 +0000

Just came back from a recent discovery in Ashiya. There’s a (relatively) new rock bar opened about 5 minutes from us, and we checked it out tonight. Thought I’d write about it while I’m drunk enough to remember.

It’s very small, just a rectangular bar, with stools for maybe 10 people, with albums and cds spread around the walls and a big tv playing music dvds.

It’s called blue mice and I quite like it.
We walked past it the other week (it used to be a jazz bar), and Aki was attracted to the big tv showing a live concert she thought was Bon Jovi (it wasn’t) but well spotted, so we made inquiries. I liked the albums dotted around the walls, Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division), Modern Lovers Live, and a Sex Pistols single (Pretty Vacant).

It was quiet when we went in (we were the only customers) and we were told we could request the music. So brief look through their collection turned up some Bauhaus (bit too gloomy for the evening I thunk), so opted for the Cure Greatest Hits DVD! Choice! As we say here, “Natsukashi” (long time no see, brings back good memories, – rough translation).
The staff there seemed to find the bad dancing and make up amusing too.

And then, Mr. Bigot came in. You won’t know who he is, but we’ve been buying his baguettes here for over a year!
He’s a French fella (who’s Japanese was amazing!) and quite a celebrity. He started selling French bread in Ashiya, but has shops all over including Tokyo now, and a very cool old fella he is too.
Quite amusing to watch him (and the staff) looking in bemusement and amusement at “Love Cats”, and “Why Can’t I Be You”.

Then the owner of the bar came in, who’s also a Cure fan, so put on their live show, and was very impressed that we went to Live 8 (so he put that dvd on too).

Shortly after that 2 guys came in, and turns out one is a local politician (he fell asleep at the bar), and we found out the bar owner is also running for local government www.satoru-aoyama.net mind you, he looks cooler in real life, just looks like a politician on his website. He really loves Ashiya, that’s why he’s running, as an independent.
We’re (or rather Aki) are gonna vote for him, any politician that runs a
rock bar and likes the Cure and David Bowie gets my vote – let that be a warning for you Tony – Oasis…rubbish mate, quit while you’re ahead – oh, too late.

Any road up drank some very cheap but tasty wine, and ended up watching Queen live from the 1970′s.

We were also given an olive, cut in half, pierced with 2 cocktail sticks, served with 2 “Chip stix” and butter and a big parsley leaf. Very Japanese and free, so no complaints here!

oh, nearly forgot the toilets, these were outside the bar, in the carpark and shared by the Indian restaurant next door (not uncommon in Japan due to limited space and high building costs – that’s outdoor toilets, not Indian restaurants), and incredibly space age! All metal, cool looking and the cubicle (it was unisex) had a control panel as opposed to a flush handle.

The photos don’t do it justice, but behind the urinal is a big window looking down onto the street 2 floors below.

I should also add, that for toilets that are, essentially in a car park, they were probably the cleanest I’ve ever had the good fortune to come across.

A splendid evening all round. (we went to a nice restaurant before that, and I’ll post some pictures of that later)

Ashiya Festival and the Pizza Selling Stormtrooper

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