Every year I do a post towards the end of Shirleyfest with things that have amused me during my month. Kyoto provided plenty of material. Let’s dive right in.
Speaking of signs, here are some very funny ones. The first one is in my neighborhood and it is letting people know all the things they shouldn’t do– do not touch the geishas, do not eat and walk, do not use selfie sticks, do not smoke, litter or lean on the fences. Apparently groups of men tourist were cornering the geishas for pictures. 
This next sign is also in my neighborhood. You got to hand it to the guy, he is straightforward.
This one is funny but very very sweet. I saw it on Naoshima when I was down in the Art Islands.
This one is in famous Nishki Market. Instructions on eating the octopus stuffed with a quail egg are most appreciated.
Speaking of eating, please heed this warning. 
I was also so amused by the trend in Kyoto to always give the peace sign when your picture is being taken. Here are a few examples. 
There was a shop at the end of my street that was rarely open and I could not figure out from the sign what it sold. Can you? Then one day I walked by and these two young girls had made a purchase.
Taxis in Kyoto are amusing for two reasons. First, you never touch the door to open or shut it. It opens and closes automatically. Also the side mirrors are not located where ours are. When I first saw a taxi, I thought it was a police car. 
Speaking of police, the first Saturday I saw all of these uniformed men near my place directing traffic. I thought a dignitary was in town. 
Nope. I tried to go into the building they were “guarding” and they all stopped me and pointed to this sign.
Oh I see. It was off track betting. It has been this way every weekend since I got here. I love the name of the facility…WINS.
I was cutting thru a forest area in Nara and when I turned the corner I saw this run down house. But….apparently they love my favorite sport of basketball.
Also in the forest, but at the start of a trailhead , was this guy. Maybe it reminds some of you of someone 
Most people who come to Japan are amused by the next set of pictures. Vending machines everywhere. There is a mentality of efficiency that makes these vending machines very popular. When I went to the movies the other night, everyone was in line to buy their ticket from a vending machine while a live clerk stood by also willing to sell but with no customers.
This street in Osaka made me laugh and it still does. How can you find anything? 
The Kyoto Station has 11 floors of lights and at night people come and make patterns by zig zagging thru them with their friends. Here is my friend Sandy letting herself zig and zag. It sure made me laugh .
Yasakakoshido Temple has unique way to worship. Worshippers write their wish on colourful ball called “kukurizaru” and hang them at the site. Kukurizaru is the round, ball shaped talisman made of cloth, representing the good faith monkeys. It is suppose to look like you put your wish inside a monkey. It is believed that if you give up one of your greeds, your wish will come true.
There is so much more, but let me leave you with this one. Koe makes fabulous doughnuts . They are a delight to eat. It makes me laugh to think that they need to gild the lily by adding a lemon meranguine topping. But then I saw the signs outside advertising what else they do with doughnuts. Now that’s funny.
So Kyoto you are an amusing place and you make us all laugh whether we are born here, the USA or in Austria but now call Japan home. Thank you Kyoto!
I finished my hike with a nice lunch along the river and then made my way back to Kyoto. Tonight I will finally meet Gerhard who was introduced to me several years ago by my friend Amanda. As Gerhard grew up in Vienna, he helped me with that Shirleyfest in 2017. He lives in Tokyo so he was so much help on this current trip. He kindly stopped in Kyoto on a business trip to Osaka and we had a fantastic dinner and conversation at Maruhuku. The manager Yuki was a lot of fun and brought us lots of delicious sake to go with our sushi. 
My friend Momoko came by and introduced me to a new restaurant focused on locally sourced vegetables. It is called Izakaya Negiya. Negi means leek. We had a great lunch and then went gallery hopping. As an eye drop user, I was captivated by this one piece of art. Maybe I’ve been doing the eye drops all wrong.
I took another cooking class recently. This time it was Bento Box cooking. It was great because once you learn the underlying basics you can apply them to lots of dishes. I even learned how to make sushi rolls. 
As the typhoon passed through Kyoto today I tried to use some of my newly acquired skills to make myself lunch at home in my little kitchen. I made my own dashi and that was the basis for home cooked miso soup, squash with plum topping and teriyaki chicken. Typhoon food!
I’m not sure I’m getting the high level of concern over this typhoon. It’s been raining today but I went out in it several times and it is no worse than a December California rain storm. They closed the Kyoto National Museum which seems odd as that is where people would want to go on a raining day. They even closed Starbucks early!
This is what the sky looked like last night as I walked home from dinner. I always thought it was red sky at night sailor’s delight. Guess not. Tomorrow will be a beautiful sunny day here!
This is the Heian Shrine near my apartment. The fortunes left on the tree look like snow. People make an offering and in turn get a fortune. If it is bad, it is the custom to fold up the strip of paper and attach it to a nearby tree. The idea is the bad luck will wait by the tree rather than attach to the bearer. The shrine was built on the 1100th anniversary of the capital’s foundation in Kyoto. 
This is the enormous kiln of the famous potter Kawai Kanjiro. His home is gorgeous and serene. So is his cat with his face turned to the sun. I visited here one afternoon and there was only one other couple there ( from Oakland!).
I got up so early to go see Kiyomizu-dera Temple. I’m glad I did as it is stunning in the morning and I was nearly all alone wandering around the grounds.
Now for some food pictures.
If it wasn’t for the ferry beckoning me, I would have just stayed there the rest of the day. I hop on the ferry which is 5 minutes away and we sail along the Seto Island Sea.
I get the first of my electric bikes and start my pilgrimage to the amazing art sites. It is the Setouchi Triennial while I’m here so in addition to the permanent installations there are lots of special exhibits. It’s a gloriously sunny day and I would be content to just be riding my bike around the island, but art beckons. I stop first at the Bernesse Art Museum, designed by Tadao Ando, an unorthodox, iconic, self-taught Japanese architect whose presence is felt all over the islands (and globally).
Do you see the boats? 
I also loved these three chattering men.
I’m off to the Lee Ufan museum. It’s an underground house designed by Tadao Ando with the art work of Korean artist Lee Ufan. While all the rooms in this museum speak to me, I absolutely adore the art in the Silence Room called Relatum Silence. I am frozen in front of it.
Now I am off to see the Chichu Museum where I had to buy a special ticket online weeks ago. This is also a Tadao Ando museum. It is subterranean with only three rooms. One contains Monet’s water lilies , one has an experience art by James Turrell and my favorite is the third room: Walter de Maria’s exhibit Time/Timeless/No Time of a black ball surrounded by 27 sculptures of gold painted pillars. 
How did they get that ball in the room? ( I’m curious. I have to know, so I find someone and ask. The art went in first and then they built the roof. Wow!)
Finally I lock my bike up and take the ferry back to Uno as the sun is setting. 
Yumi has suggested a sashimi restaurant nearby for dinner. The fish couldn’t be any fresher with the sea right here. It’s a husband and wife operation and I enjoy watching the sashimi being prepared right before me. Also, sake goes very well with sashimi! 
Tonight I’m going to try the Japanese Onsen baths for the first time. I walk over to the Onsen under a beautiful night sky.
The Onsen is separated by men and women, each side has 5 different types of baths and saunas. I try them all. It is pretty cool to be sitting in the Japanese bath looking at the Seto Island Sea and gazing at the moon. Some of the baths are filled with peonies, hydrangeas and irises. Afterwards dressed in the lounging kimono and pants provided to each guest, I have dinner in the restaurant. I order the local sea bream two ways– sashimi and then diced into a dashi broth and poured over rice, called Tai-Chazuke.
Overloaded by all that deer cuteness, I head to a brewery called Harushika Sake Brewery. Oh yes please I’ll try the six sake tasting with these two gents from Osaka. I actually know very little about sake but I learned a ton and by the time I left ( actually they poured me seven tastings since I was enthusiastic) I knew enough to know I like it and want to drink more of it.
Home in Kyoto that night I followed my Melbourne friend Eugene’s suggestion and headed for a local Izakara called Yururi for dinner. So glad I did. Tobe, the owner who loves Hawaii and has Hawaiian music playing and surfboards for decoration was so attentive and fun, plus the food was excellent! He and I really bonded. 
I loved this place so much that when new friends from California came to town, I suggested we go there for lunch. It was late afternoon and the 3 of walked in to find they had closed until dinner. I accepted that, but Tobe, said “no Shirley-San, I will make you and your friends lunch”. He reopened just for us. He called in two helpers and we had a beautiful private lunch. 
The Sanzen Temple there is beautiful. I sit at this tiny window in a small room with flowers, incense burning and candles lit, overlooking the forest and then when I’m ready I go thru a small door outside and look back through the same window– magical what I can see from that side. 
At this point, out comes the sake. We drink it “sake in a box style”. That means you fill the glass to the brim while it is sitting in a cedar box. You drink your glass and naturally some spills into the box. Then after you are done with your glass, you pour that back into the box and realize the cedar has given it a new twist. 
Wednesday was my first solo day in Kyoto, as the last of my visiting siblings and friends left that morning. We had such fun together ( more on that later) but now it was time for me to do what I’ve been itching to do– get up at the crack of dawn and go out to the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. An hour bus ride and a quick walk in the woods led me here and it was magical. There is such a strange quality to the light. Later there would be hordes of people but for now it was all mine. I took quite a few pictures as I just could not believe my luck to be alone in such a gorgeous place. 
Returning to Kyoto, I met up with a new friend Gaji, who invited me for drinks at the Kawa Cafe overlooking the Kamogawa River. Gagi took this picture.
After drinks, we headed for a secluded restaurant, called Yamabun, in Gion where Gagi is friends with the chef, Aoki. What a meal! Course after course. Three different kinds of sake and loads of fun as Aoki conversed with us while we ate and drank.
Everywhere we go we get stopped and people ask to have their picture taken with us. It is such a fun experience. We really hated to return our lovely kimonos at the end of the day.
My birthday dinner before they left was celebrated at Mamechu in a private dining room on tatami mats. Many courses, some of which we knew and some we did not, but all delicious and loads of laughing
I quickly unpacked as my friends Sandy and Harvey were in town and were bringing by champagne to kick off the trip. 
I start with a boat ride along the canals and I fall in love immediately with this town. All along the canal are colorful medieval buildings and I feel I’ve been thrown back into the Middle Ages. The city is like one big breathtakingly beautiful postcard. It is in fact a UNESCO World Heritage City.
It’s beautiful and I want to take the short 15 minute train ride to Haarlem. Haarlem gave America’s Harlem it’s name back when NYC was New Amsterdam, a Dutch colony.
Also at the market, I see these 3 cute kids in a bike basket and the little one was just saying over and over “mama? mama? mama?”–not crying–just sort of in a wondering way. No parent was anywhere near. No helicoptering parenting in Holland apparently.
I’ve never seen this before. 
I guess the very practical Dutch like buying only the part of the pineapple they can actually eat.
Of course we said yes. Don’t we look so very happy?
I’m talking to two guys near me who have had several good looking appetizers and finished a bottle of wine. I think they are going to pay and leave when the one says to Lindsey, ” now we want to order the 6 course dinner with the wine pairings.” Perfect— now I feel light eater!
We quickly arrived at my apartment and as is typical of traditional Dutch homes there was a steep set of stairs that led to my beautiful apartment. Anna and Robert, the owners, met me warmly and I was delighted with what I found. Not only was the apartment in a great neighborhood, they had stocked the fridge, left flowers everywhere and a bottle of wine was a chilling on the table.
We hiked, saw bears , moose, puffin, and otters and ate wonderful King Crab and halibut. It was a wonderful group of people from every age group and walk of life. We also managed to sneak in a tasting at a local brewery. 
But now it is time to reveal this year’s Shirleyfest location. Can you guess from the photo?
Baden was an easy trip by train and a short walk into town when I arrived. It is a spa town with the Baden baths being the focal point. 
For me, however, the focal point was meeting a chef who then took me to his chef friend’s restaurant for lunch because I had to have what he called the best octopus stew in the world. It was amazing.
The two restaurants Wolfgang suggested were very different, but both casual and filled with locals. Neni is an Israeli/Middle Eastern restaurant in the Naschmarkt. I went at night and loved every bite.
Reinthaler Gasthaus is a place in the city center where locals and businessman congregate. Very basic local food but overhearing the conversations was a lot of fun. A group of local investment bankers who swapped out between speaking German and English were telling their colleagues about their recent trip to San Francisco and it was all I could do to not bust into the conversation. I held my tongue and as they paid their bill they commented, ” You know America is still a really nice place even if their president isn’t.” Their words, verbatim. 
Wolfgang’s last suggestion of going to the Wachau was brilliant. This is the area that produces my favorite Austrian wine, the Gruner Veltliner. I had an amazing day in the valley, punctuated by seeing the Melk Abby, wine tasting in Dürnstein and sailing down the Danube and meeting a terrific couple from England who have traveled the world even though one of refuses to fly. Here’s me being happy in the Wachau Valley with the Danube behind me. I’ll stop there because that day deserves its own story. Until then, “Proust” to Wolfgang and to all of you. 
If Pacific Avenue was this tree-laden, I decided to turn the corner and check out the tree tossing on Broadway–Billionaire’s Row. I thought they must have even more elaborate tree trash. First, with an apology to my friends shivering on the east coast, I admire the view on this January day from the top of the Lyon steps. 
It looks like some kind of football wreath. On closer inspection I see it is a PURDUE football wreath. As a Purdue alum who only days before witnessed Purdue beat Arizona in the Foster Farms bowl, I am delighted. I complete my loop and am relieved to see that not everybody tossed out their Christmas decorations when they tore off their calendar page.
This is a record for me. Today I went to Hungary for the day and last week I went to Slovakia for the day. For someone that likes to spend 30 days in one city, this is a little strange and doing 2 countries in 2 days is something I have never done before. When I worked for GM, I used to stay in El Paso, Texas and go across the border to Mexico to work each morning, but that was hardly the same thing! Good news is—-going to Budapest for the day was totally worth doing.
Andráss also indicated the Jewish Quarter behind the square and mentioned the “ruin bars” in the back alleys. I had heard of those and made a mental note to return and check that out. Next we went to St Stephen’s Cathedral.
On the other side we laughed at people waiting hours in line to ride the funicular to Castle Hill.
Instead we walked up there with no problem ( well some people did need a break but most were fine). St Matthias Church is at the top, as well as Fisherman’s Bastion and gorgeous views of Parliament and the city from the Bastion.
The walking tour was over so I caught a local bus back to Elizabeth Square and decided to walk down Andrássy Boulebard to Heroes’ Square. It was a long walk and there were high end stores all along. I came cross the Hungarian State Opera House and went inside. It is lovely. 
Walking again I came to Heroes’ Square but I had forgotten to eat and it was 2 pm. I saw a cute outdoor cafe and was quickly served a salad and I ate and took in the famous square. 
Now I want to find those ruin bars. I take the Millennial Underground. It is the first subway line in continental Europe and the second oldest underground in the world ( after London’s) and it was built in 1896. 
When beautiful Andrássy Boulevard was completed, the city leaders did not want any public transportation going up and down it carrying passengers from the city center to the city park which is behind Heroes’ Square.
Ruin Bars are quirky pubs and clubs that have taken over the city’s abandoned spaces. I head to the back streets and finally come upon the one that started the whole movement. Szimpla. 
I walk in and it is mind blowing. It’s a maze of random items in a number of rooms and a big courtyard. 
There is a bathtub split in half that is a seating area. So many rooms and odd things turned into seating areas. It’s a bar so I need a drink. It says cash only and I didn’t get any Hungarian forint(HUF). I offer euros and the bartender changes 5 Euros into 1350 HUF and gives me a big glass of Hungarian wine and 1000 HUF back. So the wine is less than 2 euros! The bartender tells me that Szimpla invites local artists to come decorate, so it is a hodgepodge of mismatched decor. I grab a seat. A fellow next to me, Steve, and I start to chat. He is an interesting British guy living in Thailand. Travels all the time. Just came to Budapest for a couple of nights. Recently was in 9 countries in South America. I thought I loved to travel! We had a really good discussion of pros and cons of traveling solo. We agreed the best part is not owing any apologizes when you make a mistake. Like getting on the train going the wrong way and realizing it 2 stops later. You simply get off and go back the other way. This neighborhood area is really cool. I wander around a little and do a little shopping. I turn the corner and there is the Great Synagogue. The second biggest Syngogue in the world. Quite lovely in this light. 
I see an art gallery and it looks like it is having an opening and I wander in there for a while too. There are lots of parks and lots of kids around town. It seems like a really livable city. Its getting late and I need to get my metro back to the train station. Even the train station is memorable here in Budapest. 
I’d like to return someday and check out more of the back streets of this capital city.
I had a wonderful birthday in Vienna.
I decided to head out to the Naschmarkt as the Winnike’s arrive today and I wanted to get some treats. Part of the fun of a birthday is getting messages on social media from friends all over the world. I check those and they make me smile .
The city is empty at this hour and all the building are glowing as the sun rises. I make my way to the Naschmarkt but I’ll tell the truth I stoped at Demel’s bakery for a mini apelstrudel first. 
At the market everything is arranged so beautifully and it’s not crowded at all yet. I get my treats and also stop at the flower stand I like and the shopkeeper arranges a beautiful bouquet. 
I also want some apples so I stop a stand near the end of the market. 
I’m floundering a little with my German when a nice man translates and saves me. We get to talking about travel, living in Vienna, food..his name is Arno and he has a software company. When I mention I’m at the market to get provisions for my friends who are arriving for my birthday, he insist on buying me a birthday coffee and we chat even longer. Super nice guy. I walk on but stop at the Hotel Sacher because Wolfgang, the concierge, has emailed me birthday wishes. He is there and I get his warm birthday wishes in person.
Dan and Sharon come by my apartment for aperol spritzes and we meet latter at Restaurant Grace for a terrific dinner. Starting with the house cocktail of course. 
Dan and Sharon had brought me a great gift from Copenhagen and even nicer they offered to carry it back to the states for me in their luggage. The restaurant has made me a special dessert and I feel very lucky to have such a great day in Vienna. 
I collect things that amuse me during my Shirleyfests. Vienna has not let me down in this regard. The three pictures above are typical everyday Viennese dishes ( yes I ate all of these and more). So please tell me why there are these machines everywhere you look? I mean you are eating 7,000 calories a day and you want to weigh yourself in public?
Awww…. Equal opportunity child crossing helpers. Or creepy?
Since I have lots of ice, and I’m immune from the calories since my body is used to aperol spritzes and I can walk faster than a car, I know just what to do. 
I had already researched that a local student-led tour started 15 minutes after we got there, so I quickly made my way down the tree lined boulevard to the center of town and met Janna. I almost always go for the student-led tour because (1) they can use the money and (2) they get a younger group of guest so they walk more swiftly and cover lots more things and (3) I just love the enthusiasm of the guides.
Yes please, some local cheese would be great.
