Blooming and Booming

Today was a mish mash of various events with a lot of soccer thrown in. The day started with a visit to the Museum of Applied Art (MAK) which is Vienna's answer to the V&A in London. The collection itself if not nearly as impressive but the building itself is a work of art. Marble pillars, painted ceilings, fountains embedded in the walls. The building is worth a visit just to gawk at (and its free on Saturdays). The Design Shop off the atrium is a showcase of how art and functionality can be combined to create quirky yet beautiful practical pieces.

The MAK borders the Stadtpark (City Park) and everything in the park seem to be blooming. The clock above is a perfect example (I wasn't tall enough to get a full picture).

On the way to lunch at Naschmarkt I got horribly disorientated and landed up at the wrong exit at Karlsplatz, not a tragedy because I stumbled across the Opera Toilet. It sings whenever anyone enters the toilet, a highly amusing spectacle. My other discovery was a beautiful fountain in the gardens around the U-Bahn exit.

Naschmarkt is a vibrant market with a mix of fresh produce, flea market junk, foreign cuisine supply stores and pavement restaurants. A group organised to Toko Ri, the Japanese restaurant within the market. Ordering sushi in German with Japanese names is amusing.

What followed was lots of World Cup match viewing...

The final bit of excitement for the day was a thunderstorm that materialised within minutes over the Danube Island (we were having a BBQ with the Forestry group). Stunning lightning and thunderclaps heralded the rain and so ended the day of sunshine and badminton and bbqing.