Church of Saint Nicholas, Prague

Posted on April 17, 2025 by admin

Regards for Easter. Back to posting on April 21.

Old Town Square, Prague, on a gray day in March.

Facing the Old Town Square, though not in those images, is the Church of Saint Nicholas (Kostel svatého Mikuláše), a site with a history as varied as it is long. There was a church there since at least the 12th century and, knowing how these things go, probably some sacred space well before that.

When Hussites had their moment, they used the church. Afterward, Premonstratensians used it, and then Benedictines set up a monastery there. When their time had run its course, the temporarily secularized building was for a time a storehouse, and – a little hard to imagine, but this is what a sign in the church said – a music hall. Religion returned in 1920 in the form of revived Hussites newly independent of Rome, who use the church to this day.

How many Czech Hussites are there these days? World Atlas asserts fewer than 40,000, which is fewer than 0.4 percent of the population. But that hardly counts as a long-term win for this particular Counter-Reformation, if you can call it that. The largest categories of religion in the modern Czech Republic are “Undeclared” and “No Religion,” together totaling nearly 80 percent.

The 21st-century visitor to St. Nicholas sees a bit of urban renewal from the 18th century, to use a term that the ecclesiastical authorities who wanted a new building back then surely didn’t use, even in the unlikely event they’d used English. I’ll bet the old Gothic church on the site was worn out and just so 12th century anyway. Out with Gothic, in with Baroque.

Looks like St. George, doing what is expected of him: dealing with the dragon.

Berliner Dom

Posted on April 16, 2025 by admin

My friend Steve and I crossed into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie on the morning of July 9, 1983, and headed for Museum Island. A heady time for us: lads out seeing the world, including a slice behind the Iron Curtain, a political situation that predated our existence. I’m sure that had you asked me at that moment, I’d have predicted that the world was going to be stuck with it for the rest of our lifetimes at least. It didn’t even last the decade. 1989 was quite a surprise.

That evening I wrote: “We looked at a small, roundish church, then Humboldt U., then we found ourselves at the Cathedral. Nice, but a wreck inside.”

That “small, roundish church” must have been St. Hedwig’s Cathedral (St.-Hedwigs-Kathedrale), which is in fact the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Berlin and not particularly small. But maybe it seemed that way in comparison to a lot of other very large buildings we saw that day, including the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral), which is part of the Evangelical Church in Germany and technically not a cathedral, but never mind.

I didn’t have a camera in ’83. Italics because who would believe it now? Steve had a point-and-shoot, and some months later, he sent me some physical prints from our visit, including one of the Berliner Dom.

The Fernsehturm TV tower is in the background. Either we didn’t have time for it in ’83 or it wasn’t open to tourists – it’s the kind of thing I would have done – and in ’25 we decided that 30+ euros was too much for an observation deck.

My return to the Berliner Dom was on March 7, 2025, this time with my brother Jay. Now, of course, point-and-shot cameras are worlds better than they used to be, and filmless, and you can slip them in your pocket when not in use.

The DDR might have built an impressive TV tower, but the state never got around to restoring the interior of the Berliner Dom, though the dome itself was replaced. The wreck of the original dome still lingered on the cathedral floor back then. If I remember right, one peered from a balcony down on the rubble in ’83. Interior restoration came much later, completed in 2002.

A gushingly ornate design, but impressive, by 19th-century German architect Julius Carl Raschdorff.

Walking up to the dome was possible, but we decided too many steps were involved. I would have in ’83, as I did at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s and other enormous churches, but I’m not that young man any more.

The crypt level was closed, unfortunately, so no visiting the many Hohenzollerns therein. But not Wilhelm II, who had the cathedral built. He’s still in exile in the Netherlands.

The Lotus Temple

Posted on April 15, 2025 by admin

For a religion with at most 6 million adherents (maybe) – fewer than 0.1 percent of the people on Earth — the Baha’i Faith has created some remarkable temples, all around the Earth. Until recently, we’d been acquainted in person with only one of them, the extraordinary Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. Especially when we lived closer to that part of metro Chicago, it was a go-to place to take out-of-towners.

Now we’ve experienced another remarkable Baha’i edifice: The Lotus Temple (Kamal Mandir) in Delhi, set in an enormous green space in the southern reaches of that city. Green, but inaccessible to casual visitors, and probably for good reason, considering the volume of people that visit. We were among the crowd in late February.

More green space than one would think possible in Delhi, but the land was acquired by Baha’i adherents in 1953, using money left to them in the will of one of the faithful from Hyderabad. The city may have been large then, but not what it would become later. The temple was built from 1977 to 1986.

Designed by Fariborz Sahba, an Iranian architect and Baha’i who long ago left his homeland for North America, the structure includes 27 free-standing marble-clad “petals” arranged in clusters of three, forming nine sides, and surrounded by nine pools as the key landscape feature. Apparently nine sides is mandatory for Baha’i temples. This aerial image is quite striking, though invisible to ordinary tourists.

“There is a deep and universal reverence for the lotus in India,” Sahba said in a 2015 interview. “It is regarded as a sacred flower associated with worship throughout many centuries and therefore its significance is deeply rooted in the minds and hearts of the Indians.

“In the epic poem Mahabharata, the Creator Brahma is described as having sprung from the lotus. In Buddhist folklore the Buddha is represented as being born from a lotus, and is usually depicted standing or sitting on a lotus. It is also deeply rooted in the Zoroastrian and Islamic architecture; for example, the dome of the Taj Mahal is bud of a lotus.”

The Lotus Temple – formally a House of Worship, like the other Baha’i temples around the world – is a popular place. One source claims 3 million visitors a year, which would put it in the same league as the Taj Mahal (though sources offer rather varied numbers for that; it’s in the low millions anyway).

We waited 15 minutes or so to get in. No photography inside, which is a sweeping and unadorned, just as the Baha’i temple in Illinois and elsewhere. That too is a defining characteristic of the temples worldwide.

“The prayer hall is plain and has no altars or religious idols, pulpits, or fixed speaker platforms,” writes Mari Yariah, a Malaysian Baha’i who volunteered at the Lotus Temple for a couple of months. “There are no rituals or ceremonies. No talks or sermons are delivered…

“The prayer hall has a capacity for 1,300 visitors to be seated on the benches. There is capacity to increase the number to 2,500… Visitors were allowed to remain in the prayer hall for as long as they desired. Special prayer services are held four times throughout the day at 10 am, 12 noon, 3 pm, and 5 pm. [We weren’t there for any of those.] During these prayer sessions that last for about ten minutes, scriptures from various religions were read out or chanted in melodious voices.”

Jain Shwetambar Shree Sambhavnath Prabhu Derasar, Delhi

Posted on April 14, 2025 by admin

On foot is pretty much the way to go when you’re on the twisty little market streets of the Chandni Chowk district of Delhi. That includes where we found ourselves, at the smallish slice around a street called Khari Baoli, where vendors sell spices, herbs, nuts, dried fruits, herbs, pickles and preserves and an effusion of other edible goods.

There has been a market at Chandni Chowk since Old Delhi wasn’t old, or even much of a city, and from what I’ve read, the variety of goods is well-nigh inexhaustible. These days, it’s a good place to wander. Always something to see, but also a good idea to keep your eyes on the ground, which wasn’t entirely smooth or level. Come to think of it, neither were the wires overhead, but at least you aren’t at risk of a trip and fall because of them.

Took in the aromas. Dodged foot traffic. Heard the muffled roar of people and machines. Kept aware of our valuables at all times. Bought some tea.

Examined ornate doors.

Something unexpected was behind this one: a Jain temple.

Jain Shwetambar Shree Sambhavnath Prabhu Derasar.

Our friendly guide for a few minutes. A lay volunteer, I think. Otherwise the temple was empty that morning.

The last time I thought much about Jainism was in a VU class focused on Dharmic religions, except for a brief visit some years ago to a Jain temple in suburban Chicago, a colorful and sedate place. Even in class we didn’t study the religion long, with a few days for it and Sikhism tucked in between Hinduism and Buddhism.

I remember a bit, and I’ve read a little more. Sounds pretty strict, but if you’re going to be strict about something, nonviolence seems like a good choice, though I suspect that such an attitude has inspired more aggressive members of other religions to take whacks at Jains down the centuries. As an ancient religion, the fine points of its origin are debated, including how much of an offshoot of Vedic religion it is, or how much it is or isn’t like Buddhism. The founder isn’t really considered the founder, but one who understood what the universe had been saying for a long time.

In any case, I’m sadly unfamiliar with Jain iconography. Our guide had a few words to say about some of the works, and I’m sure he was knowledgeable, but it didn’t stick with me.

But I know stunning work when I see it. Glasswork, especially.

Glasswork that tells stories.

The details might be opaque, but you can see a lot is going on.

Tsuyu Tenjinsha Shrine (Ohatsu Tenjin), Osaka

Posted on April 13, 2025 by admin

Tucked away in the Umeda district of Osaka – a sort of downtown, with a heavy concentration of office, hotels and retail, along with the city’s busiest train station – is a Shinto shrine whose early history tends to be described (in English, anyway) using such phrases as “said to be” and “legend has it.”

While crossing on a pedestrian overpass a few days after arriving in Japan, I noticed the main torii for Tsuyu Tenjinsha Shrine (Ohatsu Tenjin). I must have visited the shrine in the 1990s. But when I got there this time, I had no memory of it. An odd feeling.

Clearly not ancient construction, or even that old. The U.S. Army Air Corps swept the area with a broom of fire in 1945, necessitating a reconstruction a decade or so later. A machine translation from the shrine web site tells of its hazy early centuries.

“[The] shrine was established on its current site, which was one of the small islands in Osaka Bay, to worship Sumiyoshi Sumuji Sone no Kami, and it is one of the former sites of the Naniwa Yasoshima Festival…

“The date of its founding is unclear, but since the Naniwa Yasoshima Festival can be traced back to the third year of the Kasho era (850) during the reign of Emperor Montoku, and the area is said to have been in place by the time of Emperor Kinmei in the sixth century, the origins of this shrine can be inferred to date back to that time.”

One of many such old shrines dotting the Kansai, in other words, many of which may still be around but which are still small, honoring obscure kami. But this one happened to be at the heart of Osaka during the Meiji era boom, and apparently grew with the city.

“The opening of the first Osaka Station in 1894 and Hankyu Railway Umeda Station in 1905 spurred the development of the area, and this shrine has come to be revered as the central guardian deity of Umeda and Sonezaki, in the heart of Osaka’s ‘kita’ [north] area,” the shrine notes.

That may be, but that isn’t why many people go there in our time. They go to offer prayers asking for better fortune in their romantic lives, whatever form that might take. Since I visited only a few days ahead of St. Valentine’s Day – another example of any number of cross-cultural WTFs you can find in Japan – the shrine was thick with prayers written on pink paper hearts.

I understand these slightly more permanent wooden plaques, known as ema, are young girls praying for beauty.

Why is this shrine associated with romance? That’s better attested, and something of an accident of history.

“Today the shrine is better known for its romantic associations, as it is a key setting of the bunraku puppet play: The Love Suicides of Sonezaki,” notes Osaka Station.

“The play tells the tragic story of two star-crossed lovers, the geisha Ohatsu and the apprentice trader Tokubei, and it was supposedly based on a historical double suicide that took place at the shrine in 1703. In the play an unfortunate combination of family pressures, financial misfortune, and the betrayal of a friend, threaten to keep the lovers apart. Unable to live without each other, they meet at the shrine and take their own lives.”

What is the opposite of star-crossed lovers, anyway? Star-aligned, maybe; one of those couples who end up celebrating a diamond anniversary without having grown to hate each other.

The popular name of the shrine, Ohatsu Tenjin, refers to the geisha of the story. Ohatsu and Tokubei are acknowledged at the shrine.

The shrine is surrounded by the buildings of Umeda and from its precincts you can exit into a shopping street. As with most such pedestrian streets in Japan, there are many small eateries.

I didn’t go there, but I can’t say I wasn’t curious.

Ampelmann

Posted on April 10, 2025 by admin

Spend enough time as a pedestrian in the former East Berlin – and it doesn’t actually take that long – and you begin to notice that the Walk/Don’t Walk signals aren’t like anywhere else. Green and red, respectively, like everywhere else, but otherwise unique cartoon men in hats.

This is the Walk sign.

That probably would have remained a passing thought for us, but at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof we spotted a store selling goods and souvenirs based on the cartoon man, who has a name: Ampelmann, that is, Traffic Light Man. The postcards were a bit expensive, but I was so amused I bought one to send and one to keep.

I sent the Walk green Ampelmann and kept the card with the Don’t Walk red Ampelmann (see below), who stands in front of various noteworthy structures in Berlin, such as the Brandenburg Gate, the TV tower at Alexanderplatz, and the Victory Column in the Tiergarten. The Walk green Ampelmann card has the same structures, but he’s strolling past them.

We also picked up an fine intangible souvenir when we learned about Traffic Light Man and his robust gait and distinctive headwear. It’s hard to know when you’ll find those, but find them you do if you’re paying just a little attention. Also, he’s a bit of fun on the beaten path — what could be more literally a beaten path than a street crosswalk?

The woman behind the counter told me that the lights were created in East Berlin in the 1960s, and when reunified Berlin wanted to phase them out in the 1990s, Berliners east and west weren’t having it. By then he was no mere traffic accessory, but a small yet vivid cultural phenomenon, star of comic strips, games and radio spots. He was too popular to be erased from street crossings throughout the east. So he remains, a rare beloved relic of the DDR, though I understand his backlights are now thoroughly modern LEDs.

I got an additional souvenir in the form of a bag from the shop.

The story of Ampelmann, first drawn in 1961, is told by the web site of that name, including information about his creator, Berlin resident Karl Peglau (d. 2009), who is described as a traffic psychologist. I can’t ever remember hearing about that profession before, but I’d say that traffic in a lot of places could use professional help. Whatever your job, you could do a lot worse for a legacy than Ampelmann.

The main Ampelmann shop is on Unter den Linden. We must have walked right past it. But somehow we didn’t miss the DDR Museum a little further on, where the thoroughfare is called Karl-Liebknecht-Straße – another relic of East Berlin (before that, it was Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße).

We didn’t feel like visiting the museum itself, but we did go to the gift shop.

As my wont, I got a few more postcards, while Jay got a refrigerator magnet. This one: Marx, Engels and Lenin. None of them, of course, lived long enough to encounter refrigerator magnets, but I’m pretty sure they would have denounced them as bourgeois frivolity. All the more reason to get some.

Lazy Monkey Chocolate

Posted on April 9, 2025 by admin

Usually it’s my brother Jim who asks me about my favorite meals on a trip, and he might yet, but this time Lilly did first. I had to think about it. There were a good many good meals along the way, but the best was hard to pin down. As for my favorite food, I knew at once: Lazy Monkey Pistachio & Kunafa Chocolate, which I bought at Emirates Cooperative Society, a mid-sized Dubai grocery store near my hotel, where I sourced a number of meals.

Lazy Monkey is a product of the UAE, though using Belgian chocolate. One might think of oil and tourism when it comes to the UAE economy, and one would be right, but food processing is part of the mix.

As for the selection at the grocery store, UAE products were an important component, but I also saw or bought items from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, India and other Middle East or Indian Ocean places. The Lebanese bread in bags was soft and just chewy enough, and a good platform of peanut butter made in India and hummus made in Jordan. For its part, Saudi Arabia produces good chocolate too, some of which I tried, but carelessly didn’t make note of any names.

Anyway, Lazy Monkey was better. The chocolate itself was excellent, raised to wonderful by the generous pistachio filling, and then to extraordinary by the slightly crunchy texture. That might have been the pistachio, but there’s also the matter of kunafa, which I had to look up. There are many variations around the Middle East, with a basis of crispy dough, cheese and syrup.

Even better, Lazy Monkey is available only in the UAE, even if you order it on line – which, at 29 dirhams, is much more expensive than at the store – though the web site promises it will be exported to other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council before long. You can’t find it on Amazon, which has other kinds of UAE pistachio chocolate confections available at similarly high prices.

All that adds to Lazy Monkey’s after-the-trip appeal, the sort everyday exoticism that Ritter Sport had when it wasn’t sold in the United States, or for that matter, Ghirardelli had when it wasn’t available everywhere from Podunk Hollow to East Jesus.

The Balloon-Blowing Couple on Their Way to Ústí nad Labem, Tokyo Banana World & Three Major Train Stations

Posted on April 8, 2025 by admin

On the afternoon of March 12, a gray, chilly day, Jay and I arrived at the Main Railway Station in Prague (Praha hlavní nádraží) to catch the EC 170 back to Berlin, leaving at 4:28 pm. We were early, and had time to look around the station.

A grand edifice. “One of the final glories of the dying empire,” notes the 2002 Rough Guide to the Czech & Slovak Republics, though perhaps “ramshackle empire” might have been more apt, since who knew the catastrophe of WWI would play out quite the way it did.

“It was designed by Joseph Fanta and officially opened in 1909 as the Franz Josef Station,” the guide book continues. “Arriving in the subterranean modern section, it’s easy to miss the station’s surviving Art Nouveau parts. The original entrance on the Wilsonova still exudes imperial confidence, with its wrought iron canopy and naked figurines clinging to the sides of the towers.”

The grand hall interior is grand indeed.

But largely empty. The crowds were at the more modern lower level, where a long tunnel connects all the train platforms, ticket offices and a fair amount of retail. We boarded our train without any problem and found that our car was nearly empty too. Not many people were headed for Berlin that Wednesday evening.

At one of the suburban stations, however, a young man and young woman got on and sat across the aisle in our car. They had that contemporary Euro-look: casually dressed, visible tattoos here and there, a few studs and earrings for both, and the mandatory beard for the man. They were in a merry mood. Not obnoxiously loud, but making happy-sounding conversations in what I assume was Czech, complete with the universal language of giggling; clearly a couple headed somewhere for some fun. Someone’s wedding, or maybe just a few days off work.

None of that was unusual. Then the woman removed a small air cylinder from her backpack and started using it to blow up balloons, which she and the man proceeded to swat around the car. I’ve been on a lot of trains in a lot of places, but I have to say, that was a first.

That didn’t last long. Soon they got off the train at the last station before the border with Germany, Ústí nad Labem, and the car got quiet again. I hope they continued to have a good time in that town.

On the trip down to Prague on the 10th, in a mostly full car, we had passed the same way going the opposite direction, and it was still daytime. So we got a good look at the hilly territory of the Elbe River Valley south of Dresden, where the train mostly follows the river. A picturesque spot, even in winter.

As for the German-Czech frontier, crossing was perfunctory. Hardly worth calling it a border. No officious or menacing border guards roamed the cars demanding Papers! (Reisepass?) Not in the 21st-century Schengen Area. We were on an Evening Train to Berlin, not a Night Train to Munich. The only indication of entering a new country (either way) was that after crossing each time, our tickets were checked again, electronically, by fairly laid-back workers of the respective railway companies on either side of the line.

The 175-mile trip to Prague began and ended at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, a massive station that didn’t exist the first time I went to Berlin. A predecessor station on the site had been badly damaged during the war, and the new station wasn’t developed until the 2000s, as Berlin’s fancy new main multi-modal transit center. Besides intercity trains, Berlin S-bahn and U-bahn trains go there, along with a lot of buses. There is also enough retail at the station to qualify as its own mall.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof isn’t an old style, but it is impressive.

One more impressive rail hub on this trip was a continent away: Tokyo Station, the busiest one in passenger numbers in that urban agglomeration, which is saying something. It too is a multi-modal facility, with various intercity rail lines meeting there, along with subways and buses. The Shinkansen from Osaka goes there, which is how we arrived. The structure dates from 1914 and amazingly survived war in the 1940s – and just as threatening – urban renewal in the 1960s. In more recent years, the station was restored to close to its original design.

Under the main dome.

Plenty of retail at Tokyo Station as well. Including some places I’d never seen before. We should have stopped to get something from Tokyo Banana World.

Per Time Out: “Tokyo Banana opened its flagship store called Tokyo Bananas inside Tokyo Station on December 8 [2022], and it’s stocked with exclusive goods. Two of the exclusive products are the Legendary Curry Bread and Cream and Red Bean Paste Doughnut — and yes, banana is the hidden ingredient for both.”

Ex Nippon semper aliquid novi, eh?

A Small Selection From the Large Universe of Indian Truck Art

Posted on April 7, 2025 by admin

Our driver in India, who took us around to places in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, seemed like a good fellow, but it was hard to say for sure. He was perhaps a decade or so younger than us, so none of us were youngsters. He had less hair than I do – and indeed might have used some of his tip money one day to have most of what little he had shaved off – and less stomach, but not none. Even in modern India, I take that as a sign that he has done reasonably well in his job driving foreigners around, though probably not well enough to ever to be a foreigner himself somewhere.

We of course have no Hindi, and he had only enough English for basic communication about stopping for meals and destinations, and to exchange other bits of other biographical information, such as his status as a father of five, and ours as parents of two. Riding on the dashboard, looking back at the driver and the passengers, was a colorful image of a deity. I didn’t ask him about it, but after some thought, realized was probably Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and fortune, among other attributes. That would fit for your place of business.

He typically would receive two sorts of calls, which he answered in what I assume was rapid-fire Hindi. One kind from his boss – the fellow who rented us the car and driver, and who had a salesman’s command of English – probably asking where we were and, for all I know, where we were going to stop for lunch that day; all I can say about that is I hope the driver got a cut, because his boss surely got one. Or at least a no-charge lunch. The other kind of call involved the voice, or voices, of young women, who were pretty clearly his daughters asking for something. You don’t need a common language to understand that.

It might be just as well that we couldn’t distract him with a lot of chit-chat. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand, namely driving in urban India’s packed streets. Packed with every sort of vehicle you can imagine and then some: trucks, cars, buses, motorcycles, motorized tuk-tuks, human-powered tuk-tuks, bicycles, scooters and other moving thingamabobs, horns blowing and each edging around the other in a tide that sometimes moved and sometimes didn’t.

When there was no motion for any more than a short time, beggars would appear in amazingly short order, and so would merchants toting their wares: one that stood out was at a jam near one of Delhi’s enormous traffic circles, which circle forlorn green spots with forlorn monuments. A tall, healthy-looking youth, who was at that moment a book-wallah carrying packages of books wrapped in clear plastic. Heavy-looking books, too, text books for learning programming or coding or whatever the tech industry calls it these days. I got a glance and he was off. I’m sure he knew we weren’t in his customer base.

Add to that a steady flow of other pedestrians, and not just ordinary walkers or people hanging out in the street — though there were plenty of those — but also men hauling goods on their backs or pushing carts or wheelbarrows. I swear I saw a guy pushing along a couple of chandeliers on a cart down one street.

In short, traffic like a lot of urban agglomerations in the world, down to details like rolling chandeliers. It’s one thing to know that in the abstract, another to see it so many years after the last time you did. I thought the traffic congestion was bad in Bangkok. (And it was.) But Delhi seems to have a special flair for congestion.

We passed a temple in Jaipur as pilgrims arrived. For a few miles, we passed pilgrims in small groups, headed for the temple, with vendors along the way giving them drinks or bits of food at no charge. Our driver was able to communicate that to us. Life spills into the streets.

I don’t want to forget another important source of movement on the roads of India: animals. Many dogs in the city, idle-looking by day but undertaking noisy turf quarrels by night, and not far from town, bovines in profusion, but also monkeys, horses (ridden and riderless), camels, goats (singly and herded), sheep (ditto) and more. The animals weren’t generally in the road, except when they were. I didn’t see any elephants rambling around, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had, after a few days on the road.

Our driver navigated it all without incident. Of course, it’s home to him, has been for a long time, but even so, he had admirable skill. Not that I would ever want to do it myself – it’s not home to me, never has been – but I had long enough to watch his technique and, in a wider context, get an inkling that there is some method to the madness of the roads.

He mainly used the horn to announce I am here to vehicles he probably was going to pass in ordinary driving, as opposed to their prime use in North America, which is to announce I AM HERE! in emergencies. (Unless you’re an asshole.) Our driver was hardly alone in his liberal use of the horn, which made for more beeping than I’ve heard since my earlier trips to urban glops like Rome, Beijing and, beepiest of all for some reason, Pusan, South Korea.

I close my eyes and I can recall those Pusan nights in ’90 in my non-climate controlled room, drinking the tea available in pots just outside everyone’s door, swatting mosquitoes that had clearly feasted on me moments before they died, and listening to the irregular beep-BEEP-beep-beeps wafting in through the damaged window screens, along with more mosquitoes.

Cruising down the intercity highways in India was another kind of education. Namely, I remembered reading about the Republic of India’s efforts in recent decades to build good highways. We only experienced a small sample, in a well-traveled part of north-central India, but from the looks of that, and things I’ve read, I’d say achievements along those lines have been made. Roads to gladden the heart of my civil engineer and South Texas road-building grandpa. Progress. I agree, though at an environmental cost.

Such roads facilitate commerce, and that means trucks – painted trucks. During the long drive between Jaipur and Delhi, I started paying closer attention to the trucks, which were typically not the 18-wheelers you might see on an Interstate, but smaller vehicles. Bigger than pickups, though. Each with a unique paint job.

The rolling canvases of India – A symphony of truck art design and culture

Like manhole covers in Japan, trucks are an art medium of renown in India. Wish I’d been paying attention earlier, I might have had a better perch for taking pictures.

Enroute, which is devoted to Indian history, tells of the origin of painted trucks in India:

“The transformation of these trucks began with the construction of intricate wooden crowns on their cabins, a practice that originated as Bedford trucks gained widespread acclaim. As trucking expanded, particularly during the 1940s, companies began personalizing their vehicles with unique logos, becoming a form of truck art recognizable to all, regardless of literacy.

“These embellishments evolved into elaborate designs, akin to the competitive decorations seen in buses of that era, aimed at attracting customers. Even after India gained independence, the influence of British Bedford trucks persisted, as Hindustan Motors [still around, what a great name] commenced assembling them locally in 1948. The design legacy of Bedford trucks laid the groundwork for subsequent generations of Indian trucks, with echoes of their aesthetic enduring in the majority of trucks on Indian roads.”

Great India is a popular slogan.

Even more popular, Blow Horn, or some variation.

More from Enroute: “In India, the landscape of truck design is significantly influenced by laws and regulations, notably the Central Motor Vehicles Act (1989) and the Code of Practice for Construction and Approval of Truck Cabs, Truck Bodies, and Trailers, among others… [Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me.] The phrases ubiquitous in Indian truck art, such as ‘Horn Please,’ ‘Keep Distance,’ and ‘Use Dipper at Night,’ have origins in legislative requirements mandating their presence on trucks.”

Use Dipper at Night? I saw that sometimes as well. One meaning: use dipped headlights. Don’t be the guy that uses your brights on a busy nighttime road, in other words. But that’s not all, according to an Indian site called Onlymyhealth.

“In the late 1980s and 1990s, India faced a rising HIV/AIDS epidemic, with truck drivers identified as a high-risk group…. Tata Motors along with NGOs initiated creative strategies to reach this mobile but hard-to-target demographic. Truck drivers were known for their love of truck art and slogans, so organisations leveraged this cultural quirk as a medium to promote awareness. Tata Motors, in collaboration with the TCI Foundation, adopted the widely recognised phrase ‘Use Dipper at Night’ to launch a creative initiative aimed at promoting safe sex among truck drivers.”

Later, Dipper became the brand name for a condom in India, marketed in a colorful way that has won some awards in the Indian advertising industry. Come to think of it, Blow Horn might just have another meaning, but never mind.

A Small Selection From the Large Universe of Japanese Manhole Covers

Posted on April 6, 2025 by admin

As tourist attractions go, manhole covers might not be the stuff of dreams or adventure, but they do have their charms. For one thing, admission is always free. No timed tickets nor ID required, beyond the documents you used to travel to another country. You could also argue for their authenticity: manhole covers are by locals, for locals, even if they don’t pay much attention to them themselves.

Famous might not quite be the word, but Japan is known for its manhole covers. You can find plenty of articles about Japanese manhole covers on line, such as one about a detailed scouring for covers at an otherwise obscure spot in Sumida Ward, Tokyo. Fully illustrated with snaps, it’s a granular approach after my own heart.

Or the Atlas Obscura page, sketching out a history of elaborate Japanese manhole covers, which reportedly date from the 1980s, taking some decades to catch on. This page asserts that there is such a thing as the Japan Society of Manhole Covers, while providing a lot of good multi-hue examples. Alas, the link to the society is dead.

On the other hand, the site of the Japan Ground Manhole Association is up and running. It is more of an engineering group, but you can find out a bit about the history of manhole covers, if you let the machine translate for you.

“In the 1980s, a construction specialist from the Ministry of Construction’s Public Sewerage Division suggested that each city, town, and village create their own original manhole design in order to improve the image of the sewerage business and appeal to citizens, and this led to the advancement of design,” JGMA says, not naming the mid-level functionary.

“In 1986, the ‘Top 20 Sewer Manhole Cover Designs’ were selected, followed the following year by ‘Manhole Faces,’ in 1989 by ‘Road Emblems,’ and in 1993 by ‘Top 250 Ground Manhole Designs,’ all of which were published under the supervision of the Ministry of Construction’s Sewerage Division (Suido Sangyo Shimbunsha). As a result, business entities across the country began competing to develop designs.”

For a long look at the art of the Japanese manhole cover, this Flickr account stocks 5,700 manhole cover images from that nation.

Though manhole cover art was a thing by the early ’90s, I have to say I heard nothing about it then. By contrast, when we went to Japan in February, I knew I might see some interesting and even good-looking ones, but I also didn’t feel like seeking them out. That’s another good thing about manhole cover tourism: you don’t have to go to them. In some sense, as you walk around, they come to you.

One of the few in color. I saw more than one of these.

Or oriented this way. Not sure which is “correct,” or even better.

Even now, Expo 2025 is preparing to open on April 13, with a run until October 13. Every Expo worth its salt needs a mascot approved by committee, and there he – she – it is, on an Osaka manhole cover, with a design by picture book illustrator named Kouhei Yamashita. Called Myaku-Myaku, the – creature? – is part of a mascot subworld in Japan known as yuru-kyara, who are mascots for places. Other examples include Kumamon, a bear-like mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture; Funassyi, the anthropomorphic pear mascot of the city of Funabashi; and Chiitan, a “fairy baby otter” that’s a mascot for the city of Susaki.

Is Myaku-Myaku so easily characterized? Anthropomorphic, yes, but what else? What to make of the blobby ring peppered with eyeballs? A least it’s smiling. Otherwise it would look like it crawled out of a cheap horror movie.

No, he’s cute. Kawaii, as they say. One of the most important words in Japanese. People stopped to take pictures of another representation of the whatsit, on Nakanoshima Island in Osaka.

The Expo isn’t just a city event, so the seal of Osaka doesn’t appear with Myaku-Myaku. Other utility covers in the city do feature the good old miotsukushi, the device of the city.

Miotsukushi were river markers on the rivers passing through Osaka. Navigation aids.

As pictured in 1877.

As I wrote almost 10 years ago: Scenes of Naniwa tells us that “the Osaka city symbol, the miotsukushi originates from the stakes used as water route signals which up to the middle of the Meiji period stood planted in the Kizu and Aji Rivers, both debouching into Osaka Harbor. The depth of the water was difficult to judge because of the abundant bamboo reeds growing in the rivers… the miotsukushi planted along both sides of the rivers were signs showing that within those stakes the water was deep enough to sail through safely.”

A miotsukushi on a manhole cover to go with Osaka Castle and cherry blossoms.

In Nagoya. A busy one, depicting industry in the city, with the castle at the hub.

In Kamakura, more manhole covers.

The following is a metal plate mounted in the sidewalk rather than a utility cover, and in fact a sign noting directions to a few main local destinations. Also, it is a tribute to local sports.

You can find it near the coast, just outside of Kamakura, and not far from where a bridge connects to Enoshima, a large island that’s home to a Shinto shrine, botanic garden and a number of scenic spots. The place is known for its surfing.

Winter wasn’t about to stop these surfer dudes.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling