Maifestival at Toursits Club

An online newsgroup posted a gathering for Mai Festival at Tourists Club of San Francisco. While I unfamiliar with the event and location, Germany beer and sausage in beautiful Muir Woods sounded like something I would love doing on a weekend:)

H and I left southbay at about 9:30am. Unfortunately, our trip through San Francisco was greatly delayed by Bay to Breakers. We did not arrive at Muir Woods until almost 1:30pm.

The private parking lot off Ridge drive was full when we arrived and we were forced to park off Panoramic Highway. A steep paved trail led from the Ridge drive lot to a Bavarian style lodge. The area is not as secluded as I had imagine, with several residential lots next to the Tourists Club's lodge.

A Bavarian band was playing traditional German music as we arrived. We found a seat on patio and watch visitors danced. Some visitors were in outdoor clothes/hiking boots, others in street clothes and a few in traditional German costume.

A small dance troupe performed an interesting Austrian dance called the "May Pole Dance" that I had never seen before. The dancers danced around a pole which had red and white strips attached to the top. Each dancer held on to the free end of the strip. Male and female dancers were paired into couples facing each other. The guys danced clockwise and the women danced anticlockwise. As they meet each other, the gentleman and ladies alternately go inside each other. With this motion, the dancers formed a quilt with the strips at the top of the pole.

I found this video on YouTube which showed this dance.


There were more dancing performance, and audience participation. Even I got into the action! The band played the Chicken dance music, and I had remembered the dance from college. I taught H the simple dance routine and did a few rounds. For those of you that did not go to school in Wisconsin, here's how what I was talking about!



After the dancing, we quickly refueled with some German beer and cabbage. Since we were already in Muir Wood, H took me to the top of Mountain Tam. From the parking lot, it was a short hike to the top. We sat there looking at the fog came in from the ocean, through the small opening of the Bay. The weather was perfect and it was beautiful.

Soon the sun began to set and we headed back towards south bay. Since we had to drive past San Francisco, we decided to stop for dinner in the city.

We ended up in Kan Zaman Cafe for a little middle eastern food and belly dancing performance. H had never seen belly dancing and was interested.

We had a simple dinner of pita bread, hummus, dolmas(grape leaves), tabouli, falafel and kibbeh. Then the belly dancer started performing. In addition to the usual belly dancing routine with the hand bell, she did a special routine where she balance a plate with several candles on top of her head while dancing.

Both the food and the dancing was better than my previous Kan Zaman experience, so we left satisfied!