Summer festivals at Urasa and Muikamachi

This is the first day of my town's summer festival. There was a mikoshi (portable shrine) parade by kids in the morning.

Mikoshi passing by my apartment block (blue in colour)

Then we went to the local gelato shop, Yummy. Greedy Germ had a double scoop - matcha tiramisu and squash (?!) flavours

Germ wrote a personal ad in Yummy's guestbook...30 yrs old, 175cm, 65 kg (he's lying)...so embarrassing! Anyway, I will go back in a couple of weeks to check if anyone replies to his ad

Went for a walk in the park (Discovered a cafe in the town's museum!). Aren't these flowers (azaleas) beautiful? There're in full bloom all around town.

Had a delicious pasta lunch at the local winery, which is a European style building set amongst rice fields with a view of the mountains.

In the evening, we went to the summer festival at Muikamachi. The highlight for that evening was taiko drumming performances. There were about 4 different taiko groups performing. As usual, there were mikoshis being paraded around and food and games stalls along the streets.

Folk dance

We ordered a matcha baileys at a pub (cos it's the first time either of us has seen this drink elsewhere) but this was brought to our table instead...

matcha berry crepe!! Somehow we misread berry as baileys...it's excusable that I misread it, but Germ's lived in Japan for 5 years before!!