Frohe Ostern!

It's Easter Sunday and I'm off to roller skate in the park. I am sort of hoping that the normal skate crowd will be otherwise engaged with family obligations today. That would mean a bit more elbow room out on the pavement for me! 

May you all have a/have had a relaxing Easter Sunday. 

Here's an Easter Sunday snap from our time in Zurich---

Honshu, Japan, Pt. 4

My friend in Japan is very sweet. When I told her that I was taking a Japanese course she said that her boyfriend could be my speaking partner. If he were local, then I might take her up on the offer. It would be good to have a language partner who didn't speak any English. I'd never be tempted to 'cheat' as there would be no point.

I had intended on writing a 'part 4' of my Japan trip back in autumn, but never got around to it. Now seems a good a time as any to finish that up--

Our time in Tokyo was just over two days, short but well spent. The below photo was taken at a place in the pedestrian zone of Asakusa, just a stone's throw from the temple. While walking around one night looking for a place to eat, we spied a rather full joint on a corner & my friend told me that their specialty was a kind of omelette/pancake/crepe. My interested was piqued, so we went for dinner. The server brings a bowl of uncooked cabbage with raw egg, I assume, spices, and whatever topping one wants like meat or cheese. We ordered ours with cheese. The entire contents of the bowl is poured onto a VERY hot griddle and the mixture is then sort of mixed/cut up by the server using two chopper/salad tosser-looking tools. Before our server left we were told that when the cheese is fully melted, our meal would be ready to eat. I don't know if you can see in the shot, but one is meant to eat the griddle cabbage-cake with a wee shovel (that's resting on the dish in front of me). The chop sticks were used for a fish seasoned with miso dish (out of shot) we also ordered. My face is read because it's about ten at night, the walls of the restaurant are opened to the night air, and it's still around 26C out. That huge glass of ice water was downed in no time.

Asakusa regional dish of cabbage with cheese cooked on a very, very hot griddle.

In the final days of my trip, we took a train down to the fourth largest city in Japan, Nagoya. Their main claim to fame is an astounding castle and its attendant grounds. Below is a replica of one of the two 'fish animal' creatures that adorned the top of the castle, one facing east and one facing west. They are meant to be protectors of the castle. Later, when we went on a guided tour of the grounds, we found out that they did not do their job, unfortunately.

Replica of original dolphin creature approx. 6' tall that stood atop the old castle.

Waiting at the entry gates to the castle grounds were 5 women wearing armbands, and, as it was pouring rain, holding umbrellas. They were on hand to give gratis castle tours to speakers of English. We decided to got for it. The woman, retiree with a desire to practice English, giving the tour could not have been nicer. (She had us take a picture in front of the dolphin creature replica, and to get us to smile said, 'pickles! butter!')

What we learned, in addition to the history of the different dynastic families living in Nagoya from the 17th to 20th century, was that in 1945 American forces obliterated the castle in an air raid. What one visits today is a reproduction built in the late 1950s. The origninal roof top 'guards', a sort of dolphin creature, had melted into blobs of gold during the raid. We were told by our guild that the gold was then refashioned into two massive tea pots now on display in Nagano City. The newly constructed marine creatures (you can see a speck of one of them in the below photo) are made of a slighter lesser quality of gold and are greatly reduced in size.

The rock wall withstood the bombing. All original.

Note one of the gold sea creatures atop the castle.

Tatami receiving room in Nagoya Castle

Note the black lacquer ceiling. The more ornate the ceiling, the higher status the room & its guests. 

During my stay in Japan, I was fortunate to book an appt. with my friend's hair stylist. Below is a picture of the two of us. My friend had to translate for us, but all turned out well. The young man who shampooed my hair was keen on learning English. His dream is to do hair in New York. He was so eager to practice his English with me that I think what normally takes a few minutes' time under the faucet took what felt to be about twenty minutes. He would scrub my head while asking me halting questions in English that I couldn't really hear with all the scrubbing going on. We did our best & my hair got squeaky clean. As it turned out, he has relatives here in the Bay Area. I gave him my email & told him to contact me anytime. I told him I'd be happy to show him around the city were he ever to visit. So far, he's yet to send a missive.

Lovely haircut from a lovely stylist.

Cardiff trip, sort of accidentally remembered.

This shot was taken by my husband back in 2012, I think it was, when we were on a trip to Cardiff. On this particular day, we took a walk along the water starting from about the National Assembly building. I can't recall where we ended up, but our jaunt took us along lovely stretches of wildflowers. All were photo-worthy.

Walking through one of the posh areas en route to the Botanical Garden, I spied this bit of choice graffiti on someone's back gate. -hope the owners of the house didn't mind, but I thought it hilarious.

The wildflower mix avec moi & the copper pictures popped up on Google as a result of some 'remember this day?' function. I suppose the feature is meant to stimulate the viewer to post the pictures on the shared Google platform to be enjoyed by strangers and friends alike. Instead of that, I thought I'd share them, along with other Cardiff trip pics I then scrounged up, here.

Cardiff Botanical Garden

Wood inlay from the Residences at Cardiff Castle

Me with the Ood, Dr. Who Museum

Part of the castle wall (moved some meters away) featuring amazing creatures including this hyena.

View from the top floor of the Cardiff Public Library

If I could go back tomorrow, I would. Cardiff is a lovely city.

Windows and visitors

This sweet kitty was keeping me company while I washed windows. She was especially keen to hang around when I opened the windows in order to clean the sills. I had one arm blocking her hasty escape attempts & the other arm stuck out the window in order to clean the muck off. The novelty wore thin fairly quickly.

We cleaned the one-room guest house which I saw was reserved for the, I'm assuming, 'revolving door' au pair who lives there. The children had their own individualized welcome mats at their back bedroom doors. Even the pet had a mat. But the au pair? Nah. Too many must come through.

We have had house guests here from London for the past week. -an old uni friend, her wife & their son. It was great to have them. I even managed to find a box of Tetley tea at a somewhat local market to give them a taste of home. PG Tips are easy to come by, but they don't fancy that brand. Fair enough, I prefer Tetley as well.

I ferried the Londoners up to Twin Peaks for the grand view of SF. I don't think they realized how great the view was going to be. I sort of had to convince my friend to go, her wife was keen for whatever. They all seemed duly impressed once we were up atop the peaks.

Partial view from atop Twin Peaks

The wide boulevard bisecting downtown and beyond is Market St. At its base is the Ferry Building(2). One can sort of make out a sliver of it way off in the background. Market extends up toward Twin Peaks, but the main portion of the commercial bit ends at Eureka Valley aka The Castro. 

Other points of possible interest are: the San Francisco Mint(1), the western span of the Bay Bridge(3), and the somewhat obscured Transamerica building(4).

The mint no longer produces coins for general circulation, but instead focuses on producing commemorative sets. -wonder if they were also responsible for producing this monstrosity? 

Philly Mint coins

The image of the Transamerica Pyramid, or as I called it when I was a child, the 'upside-down ice-cream cone', was used by beloved local writer, Herb Caen, in his column header. Herb's header would look a wee bit different today what with all the massive skyscrapers now being built downtown. The Transamerica probably wouldn't even rate, sadly. 

-had a laugh at the column snippet below. Keane's paintings, whatever one thinks of them, were painted by the wife, as we now know. 

Christmas time

We closed early at the shop yesterday. I have never worked anywhere that allowed for early closure on the 23rd, but I'm not complaining. Potential customers coming to the shop after 1.30p were the only ones upset by the change in schedule. As I was counting the till, I could see a lot of unhappy people peering through the shop window. Sorry!

A dear, sweet co-worker left me a wee gift at work on Wednesday. She's not made of money by any stretch, so I was touched she thought of me. The boss also 'played Santa' a bit. She spent a large part of the short day writing out Xmas cards for various and sundry people. Many of us at work received a gift along with our cards. -thoughtful, but re-gifting is imminent, if I'm honest.

Christmas will be a sleepy affair. The hubs went on a 100 mile ride today with a buddy. Their destination was somewhere around Point Reyes. I heard the trip was good, but windy. At least it didn't rain. Anyway, he'll likely not be up for much tomorrow. I figure I'll take a walk in Golden Gate Park or visit Ocean Beach. Maybe I'll do both. Who knows?! It's all very exciting...NOT.

It'd be nice if at least one decent coffee house were open tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.

Trip to DE & CH

The hubs and I took a brief trip to Europe the week of the US elections. However, given that the news outlets in Germany are on top of broadcasting about world events, we could not avoid hearing & reading about the Trump win. Donald's mug adorned nearly every magazine & newspaper cover in Germany & German Switzerland. It was off-putting to see him 'round every corner, to say the least.

'How dangerous is the new president?'

Highlights of the trip were jaunts to Basel, Konstanz & Zürich. Here are a few select photos--

Altstadt, Konstanz

Am Bodensee with friends.

Konstanz, as the Bodensee meets the Rhein

Along the Limmat, Zürich, Switzerland

Limmat, Zürich

Stroll along the Rhein, Basel

Gulls along the Rhein, Basel

En route to the Botanic Garden, Basel

Altstadt, Basel

Picked up this lively print while in Basel

Checking out walking sticks at a charity shop in Basel

.

Yours truly on the Red Arrow Churchill from Zürich to Schaffhausen

I miss our life in Europe & would hope to return to live there, but, at present, a move does not seem feasible. Would that it were...!

Rosemary salt/DIY gift idea

My personal stash

I've been wanting to make herb salt ever since an old boss whipped up a batch to sell for the Xmas holidays.  And sell they did!  While out on a walk yesterday, I gathered a bunch of rosemary growing 'wild' along the ped-path by my house.  I already had a sack of sea salt in my cupboard for just such an occasion, and, this morning, I hopped online in order to find a decent rosemary salt recipe.  There seem to be as many recipes as there are cooking enthusiasts, so I took bits from one recipe and combined them with another figuring that it couldn't be too hard to create a decent salt.

The bounty and my cappuccino.

The rosemary salt activity went as follows: 
6 tbsp coarse sea salt
6 juniper berries (crushed)
approx. one half cup rosemary (chopped)

Combine salt, juniper berries and rosemary in food processor.  (I used a mortar and pestle to crush the juniper and chopped the rosemary by hand.)

Mix ingredients until the rosemary & juniper are finely integrated with the salt.  Pour contents of mixer on a baking sheet (with sides) and bake for 15 minutes at 225 F.  

Once removed from oven, lightly break up salt with either your fingers or a spatula, then pour salt into either one jar or a few smaller jars, as is your want.  Store jar/s in a cool, dry place. 

Juniper berries

Juniper crushed

Rosemary, juniper and salt combined

The finished product!

My 'foodie' friends should appreciate the effort, or so I hope.