Nagoya Castle

Posted on March 30, 2025 by admin

Spring tugged back on Friday, windy and warm, touching somewhere in the 70s, with some warmth continuing over the weekend. Only a little warmer than it was in Nagoya on February 15. A nice day for an outing there.

We arrived by rail. That marvel of intercity top-speed train transportation, the Shinkansen, connects Tokyo and Osaka, and being a creature of JR (Japan Railways), you can use a Japan Rail Pass to travel on it: a pass good on JR for unlimited rides on a fixed number of days. Our passes in hand, we went from Osaka to Tokyo, and later back again.

On the way back to Osaka, we stopped for an afternoon in Nagoya, a city that most North Americans wouldn’t know. Just like most Japanese probably don’t know (for example) Indianapolis, unless they are into auto racing. Deeply into it, that is. There have to be some of those.

Whatever the enthusiasm, there is a node or a knot or a cluster or a clutch of Japanese devotees – and I’m thinking of a kicker bar I heard about in the ’90s somewhere in Japan, which may or may not have existed, but that was definitely in the realm of the possible. Decked out in someone’s idea of a ’50s Southern honky-tonk, the joint offered both kinds of music every weekend, country and western, and most of the patrons decked out themselves in their idea of country duds, including most importantly, cowboy hats.

We squeezed our luggage in a station coin locker, found the right bus stop, and rode to Nagoya Castle (名古屋城) in about 10 minutes.

As Japanese cities go, Nagoya isn’t ancient, though it sounds like people have lived scattered in the area for thousands of years. The city got up and running because of the needs of the new ruling elite, in their efforts to remain so, in the early Edo period. A new castle was just the thing. The engineers and stonemasons got to work on it in the 1610s, though who on the project would have known the Gregorian decade?

Pictured above is the main keep, a 1950s reconstruction, since the original was destroyed in 1945. The reconstruction, done in steel-reinforced concrete, hasn’t aged well, and these days the castle interior is closed due to safety concerns. One really strong earthquake might be bad for anyone who happened to be inside, no doubt. If I understand correctly, there is a plan to rebuild the keep once again, this time closer to the original, since the place was extensively documented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Probably up to modern seismic standards, however.

A nearby structure, Hommaru Palace, was rebuilt in the early 2010s, and is open at no extra charge.

Having a castle is one thing, but in the long period of peace during the Edo period, the Owari lords of castle needed more convenient administrative offices and residences. A samurai palace, in other words. The place is sumptuous.

“This luxurious architectural style, known as Shoin-zukuri, was preferred by the samurai caste as formality and etiquette were highly valued,” Nagoya City’s web site says. “Each room’s styling denoted its rank, while the lord’s audience chamber is positioned at a higher elevation than the other rooms as a show of authority.”

There are other open buildings on the castle grounds. Including a tea house, since samurai were fond of their tea.

I only took a few images in Nagoya that didn’t involve the castle and environs, since mostly that was what we had time for. But I did document a few other sites.

Sorry to report that I found no statues of Harlan Sanders in Nagoya or elsewhere in Japan this time, though his reassuring face (except for chickens) was represented at the locations I saw, such as above. What I saw represented a small sample, of course, and maybe I missed the Col. Sanders statues. Every Japanese KFC ought to have one, if you ask me. That counts as today’s eccentric opinion.

The Old Jewish Cemetery & The Pinkas Synagogue, Prague

Posted on March 27, 2025 by admin

Memory’s a dodgy bastard, so I’ll never be sure whether or not I saw souvenir golems for sale in Prague in 1994, when I bought a book of Golem stories. Maybe there were some, but those were the early years of the post-communist tourist economy. It takes a while to ramp up the tourist merch. I am sure, however, that I saw them in just about every gift shop we visited in the Czech capital in 2025. Some smaller, some larger, some gray, many the color of a dirty orange flower pot.

I decided not to buy one, though it might have been a good office-shelf companion to my figure of Ganesha or the meditating Bigfoot. But you never can be sure about golems, and since I don’t have the learning or wisdom of Rabbi Loew of Prague, the thing might get out of hand.

I also don’t remember any of the historic synagogues being open during my first visit. I’ve read that the nonprofit that manages them, the Jewish Museum in Prague, was only re-established in 1994, so I expect that most of the structures were still closed in those days.

One place that was open in ’94 was the Old Jewish Cemetery (Starý židovský hřbitov), but only for a glimpse.

Now you can take a stroll through the cemetery, which is adjacent to the Pinkas Synagogue (Pinkasova synagoga), on a stone path that snakes through the grounds. That’s one thing we did on March 11. It remains one of my favorite cemeteries.

I like the seeming chaos of the stones. Not only were people buried close to each other, they were interred in layers. I’ve read that as the cemetery grew more crowded, and use of an ossuary wasn’t an option, more soil was added, and new layers of the dead were added. You do notice, being there, that the ground tends to be higher than street level in most places, with the cemetery walls holding in the excess earth.

Burials occurred from the early 15th to the late 18th centuries. A few of the stones were also marked with modern plaques, denoting a notable permanent resident. Such as one Avigdor Kara (d. 1439).

Or Wolf Spira-Wedeles, mentioned here in passing. By the time he died (1715), some notables were receiving larger memorials, such as his.

I remembered to take a few black-and-whites.

Monochrome suits the texture and austere beauty of the Old Jewish Cemetery, I believe.

The adjacent Pinkas Synagogue hasn’t had a congregation in a long time. In our time, it serves as a memorial to the Czech Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Inside you can visit two floors.

On the walls on both floors are the names of the dead, and their birth and death dates, if known, inked by hand.

About 80,000 names in all.

Sanssouci

Posted on March 26, 2025 by admin

At the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, more about which eventually, there is an enormous canvas by Adolph Menzel (d. 1905), one of a number of his paintings on display: “Flötenkonzert Friedrichs des Großen in Sanssouci” (“The Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci”; “Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci”), dating from 1850-52.

When I made my detail, I focused on the king. Reading about the painting, and looking at images of it, I see that I might as well have focused on the preternaturally luminous chandelier.

A few days earlier, on March 9, Jay and I had boarded a train at AlexanderPlatz in central Berlin bound for Potsdam, location of Frederick’s summer retreat, Sanssouci. I expect that in the 18th century, the area was indeed a retreat, a healthy distance from Berlin and its hubbub. These days, you take the S Bahn to an outer suburb. From the Potsdam main station, a municipal bus drops you off near one of the outbuildings of Sanssouci, now the ticket office. Remember that, it will be important later.

This wasn’t our bus, but rather a tour bus, playing up the Potsdam Giants, a storied Prussian infantry regiment and special passion of Frederick the Great’s father Frederick William I, who is pictured as well (and it was Frederick the Great who disbanded them). I’d heard of the Giants, but not in detail, and the more I learn about them, the more amused I am.

Now there’s a name for a German baseball team: The Potsdam Giants. As far as I can tell, there is no such team, though the Humburg Stealers, the Mannheim Tornadoes and the Heidenheim Heideköpfe (ah, those funky Swabians) knock around the horsehide sphere professionally in the Federal Republic. That’s what I ought to do, if I ever go back to Germany, see a baseball game. Bet there are some peculiarities. Like in Japan, when you release balloons during the Seventh Inning Stretch. At least they did at Hanshin Tigers games in the early ’90s. Actually, they were blown up condoms.

The styling is Sanssouci in most English-language sources, but spelled Sans, Souci. on the building.

Seems like party-time in stone. Vineyards were important to the scheme of Sanssouci, so of course Bacchus-adjacent figures should be too.

The view from the palace. This time of the year, there was no admission to the Sanssouci gardens, so it functioned as a city park. A mild Sunday in March had brought people out to the park.

A benefit of low-season tourism: practically no waiting to get into the palace. I say low season, but in a lot of places in Berlin, and Prague too, we noticed that school groups, or individual students, were out and about in force. A form of spring break?

Images without reference to room.

One thing to like about the Rococo effervescence at Sanssouci is that there isn’t too much of it. As 18th-century European palaces go, it’s modest. Frederick wanted a place to entertain himself and others, not wow visiting muck-a-mucks. Only a dozen or so rooms. You don’t come away feeling overloaded.

What is this about?

I quote this at some length because this material, from the organization that oversees the palace, is funny. And a little quaint.

On May 13, 1998, at Sanssouci Palace a taboo in historical preservation was broken. After more than a hundred years, the Marble Hall of Frederick the Great’s summer residence once again became the scene of a festive dinner...

This time it was the Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had prevailed against all of the preservation apprehensions. It had been his express wish to honor Bill Clinton, the president of the United States of America, with a luncheon at Sanssouci during his second state visit to Germany…

The suggestion to hold the dinner in the Ovid Gallery in the neighboring New Chambers of Sanssouci, which otherwise served as the festive setting when receiving state visitors, was turned down by the American chief of protocol.

The sensual scenes from the Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, set into the gallery walls in the form of gilded stucco reliefs, were considered by the protocol chief as being too permissive. There was a fear that the press would make a connection to the Lewinsky affair, which had been a constant theme for the media since the beginning of 1998.

Scenes from the room supposedly decorated for Voltaire, who visited the palace till he had a falling out with the king.

When we were done, we went back to the bus stop where we got off, operating under the assumption that Sanssouci was as far as the bus went, and it would take us directly back to the train station. This was wrong. Soon we were riding along, further into less developed areas, and I remember thinking – or did I say it out loud? — I don’t remember any of this.

We passed by a sign for the Max Planck Institute in front of some buildings in the mid-distance. Really? That’s here? Suburban Berlin was certainly plausible, but later I found out that Max Planck Society is headquartered in Munich, and has a lot of branches. That includes one in Golm, an outlying neighborhood of Potsdam, with narrow and lightly traveled streets through smallish but pleasant single-family houses with yards. Elsewhere in Golm are fields that are probably agricultural, or at least pastureland.

I hear Max Planck Institute and I suspect one or more branches are doing Time Tunnel research. You know, go back in time and make sure Hitler becomes an architect instead of a politician, that kind of thing. That kind of thinking is what I get for watching TV science fiction as a lad.

Then the bus stopped and we were directed to exit at the end of the line. Jay mustered his German and communicated with the driver, a chunky middle-aged fellow puffing on his vape, now that he was on break. The bus, we found out, would return to the train station in about 30 minutes. We were able to communicate this to the two other passengers who had done the same as us, two women tourists from South Korea, I think.

Such was a Sunday schedule, meaning a wait at the transit hub of Golm.

Luckily, the day was mild, almost pleasant, so sitting around outside for a while was no issue. Or taking a short walk.

An oddity.

3.10.1990 is all it says. The date of German reunification. The neighborhood’s private memorial to that event? Or was it a former border marker? I checked and no, Potsdam was firmly in East Germany. A stone marking the occasion when Potsdam, or even Golm, didn’t have to be in the DDR any more? Could be.

Dubai Mall

Posted on March 25, 2025 by admin

“How far is it to the Metro station? I mean, to walk?” I asked the clerk at my hotel in Dubai, a property not far from the airport that I had picked for that reason, and because it was supposedly close to a Metro station. Like many places, that is what Dubai calls its part elevated-part subway system. My maps had given me some clue about the walking distance, but it’s good to check with someone who might have personal knowledge.

Or not. “Five minutes,” she said, offering a standard answer. That actually wasn’t too far off in the grand scheme even of a single day, since the walk took about 10 minutes. In late February, that difference doesn’t make much difference, but I bet it does during the hotter months. Beginning soon, maybe?

I had a hankering to get around Dubai by Metro. So each time I rode the system, I first did the 10-minute walk along a moderately busy street, part of whose traffic was Emirates employees arriving at work, since the airline’s HQ is nearby. Coming to Dubai, I flew Emirates for the first time. It has a solid reputation among travelers, or at least did the last time I thought about it, but in any case I can report that the Airbus flight was good, including a number of small amenities (such as nice snacks), though inevitably legroom was a little short for a six-foot fellow such as myself. The flight attendant uniforms are pretty spiffy, though.

Travel on the Metro involves a Nol card. Once I found the right machine at the station, those were easy to buy and not particularly expensive. Nol, I understand, means “card” in Arabic, so what I acquired from the machine was a Card card good unlimited rides for 24 hours, total cost about $6, which one pays in UAE dirhams.

During my transit excursions, I had to make sure not to board the gold car – a single car upfront at a higher price – nor the women-and-children only cars on the rush hour trains. I almost boarded one of the latter, but I realized my mistake before I did. Not sure whether doing so would have merely been embarrassing, or whether transit cops would have shown up for a mandatory chat in a place that has no Fifth Amendment.

Everything about the Dubai Metro was easy. The only way it would have been more frictionless would have been no charge at all, which isn’t going to happen. As a relatively new system, built by a consortium of mostly Japanese companies and only in operation since 2009, the cars are clean and new, the signage (Arabic and English) is fairly clear, and I never had to wait long for a train.

On the other hand, most of my travels on the longest of the two lines, the Red Line, involved crowds as thick as any you’d see in rush hour New York or London or Tokyo. As diverse, too, though more heavily skewed toward South Asia, where most of the UAE’s non-citizen residents come from. A fair number of tourists packed in the cars as well, many of whom were from Europe, but probably also India – to judge by the flight from Delhi, Indians who can afford it take holidays Dubai. Another detail hints at large numbers of Indian visitors: my hotel room toilet came equipped with a spray nozzle.

After a few rides on the Red Line, I noticed that the crowd wasn’t quite like any other transit crowd in one way. Until the last few stations on the line, few people actually got off. People would get on and never seem to leave, station after station. I had time to reflect on that more than once as I stood for about 15 stations, waiting for someone to leave a seat. (I don’t look old enough for anyone to offer one, though I feel that way sometimes.)

In most subways, unless it’s absolute peak rush hour, there will be turnover from station to station. But not much in Dubai, at least according to my small sample.

Later I thought of a possible reason. Though there are two lines (and eventually will be a third), the Red Line is the main one across miles of the city, roughly paralleling the coastline. I can’t imagine that most low- and mid-level workers live that near their places of work, and so the Red Line forms one link in their commute, which also includes buses on one or both ends.

One exception was the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall station. A lot of people got off there. They were going to the mall. I did too. I’d read about the mall, known as one of the larger ones in the world, and one of the posher. I also knew that, for the last three decades or so, malls have been developed all over the world, including in places where they are big new hits, such as in China, Southeast Asia, India, Saudi Arabia and other places (Dubai, for instance), and not relics of a more expansive time, like they might be North America. So I figured it was worth seeing.

I noticed on the map that an elevated walkway goes from the station to the mall. I didn’t think about how long it might be. Soon I found out. One source says half a mile. Having walked it more than once, I believe it. Moving walkways made things a little easier, but the first time you go through, each section of the walkway makes you wonder how many more there will be. Close to the mall itself, but not in the mall, you go through a passageway lined with snack shops and souvenir stores. Leaving, I found my entire supply of Dubai postcards at one of the latter, including stamps. International postcard rate: 3 dirhams. US 82 cents, not bad.

Before long you reach the entrance to the mall. I should have paid closer attention at that moment. Actually, I thought I did. But no: it would take a while for me to find that passage again, and my exit from the mall.

I spent maybe three hours wandering around the mall, unusual behavior for me. But part of the time I was lost. Not lost in the sense of they’ll find my bones somewhere, but rather disoriented for stretches of time. I expect the design encourages just such a reaction.

There are four full shopping floors and not a lot of right angles, and a sort-of oval shape overall, with extra branches snaking off in various directions (this is just the ground floor). Wayfinding isn’t bad, but the endless distractions in the stores and among the people passing by make it easy to miss an important directional sign. Most importantly: the place is huge.

Measured by gross leasable area – at 4.3 million square feet – Dubai Mall is the seventh largest in the world, according to Luxe Digital in 2024, though its floor area is 12 million square feet. That is, for every square foot of retail space, there are nearly two square feet of everything else. There is a lot of everything else: sweeping common areas, all bright and immaculate, a gargantuan aquarium, an ice-skating rink, the entrance to the Burj Khalifa observation decks, possibly two food courts, a thing called KidZania and naturally a multiplex cinema. And more. That could be the property’s informal motto: There’s Always More!

As for the stores, there are about 1,200 of them, many familiar (indeed, U.S. and European), others less so (Middle Eastern, South and East Asian, and some of the Euro-brands). Every upmarket brand you’ve ever heard of is going to be there, and then some. Many cluster in a section of mall called Fashion Avenue, which is big enough to be a standalone shopping center. Mid-market retailers seem to thrive in the mall as well, though some of the more everyday sorts of stores, such as a large grocery store, are to be found at the lowest level. There is an entire section of the mall called Chinatown, sporting Chinese retailers and restaurants and décor. Nice use of lanterns and neon. Also, supposedly you can play various sports on the roof of Dubai Mall. I didn’t look into that.

The mall was busy, and just as multicultural as the subway or the rest of Dubai. Signs tended to be in four languages: Arabic, since this is an Arab country, English for almost everyone else, plus Hindi and Russian, which must represent two large shopper blocs. It’s only three-and-a-half hour flight from Delhi, probably the same from Bangalore and certainly less from Bombay. As for Russia, much of Europe is off limits these days, but the UAE apparently isn’t; and maybe some Russians with the wherewithal are sitting things out in Dubai. Just speculating about that.

Slightly detached from the mall is the Souk Al Bahar, another 100 stores and a posh place indeed, done in “Arabesque” style (the mall’s term). It wasn’t nearly as crowded as the main mall, but I expect people who do go there are probably prepared to spend some serious dirhams. Me, I was just looking around, and as usual looking for a restroom. Time Out Dubai is in the souk as well, its restaurants tucked in a warren-like area, and so giving off a different vibe from the high-ceiling space occupied by Time Out Lisboa, though I’m sure the food is just as good.

Next to the mall and the souk is an enormous artificial pond, home to Dubai Fountain, which pushes water as high as 500 feet into the air periodically, with water jets choreographed to music and, at night, colorful lights. I didn’t know this before: It is a WET design – the same company, WET, that did the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas and a lot of other fountains in a lot of other places.

Not long after noon, I surveyed lunch options at the end of the mall I happened to be, which was near the souk and the fountain. One option that had seating outside, within view of the fountain, was Five Guys. So lunch was al fresco that day, February 26, a serving of Five Guys fries and a drink, which is definitely enough. As I enjoyed my taters, some of sort of rousing Middle Eastern tune struck up, and the water show began. Nice work, WET.

I wasn’t lost all the time. Much of my visit was pure wander: a peek at store after store, level after level, up and down escalators, and looking for a restroom (one I visited twice was marble-and-mirror swanky, with more than one attendant in coat and tie, none of whom asked a tip, unlike India). I also passed by most property’s entertainment features, with none more impressive than the aquarium, even for those who don’t pay to go in. Officially, it is the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo. Shoppers just wandering through the mall can see one wall of the aquarium.

“Dive into an amazing aquatic world at Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo — home to thousands of aquatic animals, over 140 marine species and a 270-degree walk-through tunnel,” says the mall’s web site, “Located within Dubai Mall, Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo features a 10-litre tank [sic] containing more than 400 Sharks and Rays, including Sand Tiger Sharks, Giant Groupers and a wide array of amazing marine life.”

I’m sure that was a simple typo, but the absurdity of fitting all those sea creatures into 10 liters makes me smile. The actual size would be 10 million liters, a number I can believe, now that I’ve stood next to the two-story wall of glass holding all that water in. The sight is magnificent: enormous swirls of undersea life, schools and large fish and sharks in motion, as colorful as can be, and an attentive collection of shoppers, kids and adults, clearly enjoying the spectacle.

By about 3 pm, my energy was at a low ebb, so I made my way to Reel Cinema, the multiplex, to find a place to sit for a couple of hours. That is how I came to see Captain America: Brave New World in a nearly empty theater near the shores of the Persian Gulf (there were a few boys in a row behind me: the intended audience.) The movie was the only one I didn’t mind seeing, at a starting time that wasn’t too far in the future. I suppose I could have taken in a Bollywood offering, just for the novelty of it, but I wasn’t feeling it.

The only modern Capital America movie I saw before was – something or other, but it was actually set in the 1940s. That’s the Captain America I know, vaguely. He fights Nazis. Brave New World has a now-ish setting and someone else is Captain America (both the actor and the character) and the villain is someone or other out for revenge for some reason or other. My interest in this particular franchise, and pretty much all of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” is fairly low. As in, next to nothing. The characters discussed, from time to time, things that had happened in previous movies, but I couldn’t get interested in that, either.

Still, the movie was fun to watch sometimes, such as the mano-a-mano fight scenes or the brisk violations of the laws of physics, or, come to think of it, the biological impossibility of Harrison Ford morphing into a red Hulk. (Hulks get to be different colors, like kryptonite?) Bonus extra for watching the movie in the UAE: Arabic subtitles. That, I think, was a first for me.

Qutb Minar, Delhi

Posted on March 24, 2025 by admin

When it comes to historic ruins in Delhi, the Mughals aren’t the only game in town. Qutb Minar, a 238-foot pre-Mughal legacy of the Delhi Sultanate, rises above the southern part of the metro, part of a larger complex that’s a World Heritage Site. That was how it went for us as tourists in modern India. Another day, another World Heritage Site.

I’d say Qutb Minar deserves its modern status.

Casual visitors can’t climb to the top any more and I’m not sure I could have anyway. “Access to the top ceased after 2000 due to suicides,” asserts Wiki. But you can stand right under the tower and behold the detail, as we did on the afternoon of February 20.

Monumental structures this old come with extra layers of marvel, at least in my reckoning. It’s one thing to admire a tower like Tokyo Skytree or Burj Khalifa, which are certainly impressive, but whose construction also had the benefit of all sorts of machines and experts in their use — enormous cranes come to mind, as do CAD systems with more computing power than the entire Apollo program.

On the other hand, Qutb Minar is essentially an artful stack of brick, one of whose characteristics turned out to be longevity. I’m certain some machines were available for the task, but I also imagine much of the building involved human and animal power. How did builders beginning around AD 1200 – around what, AH 620? — undertake such a feat? It only goes to show that machines might augment the result, but technique lies in the human mind.

Various sources tell me that Qutb Minar counts as a minaret for the nearby Quwwatu’l-Islam mosque, built around the same time and now a ruin, and as a “victory tower.” That is, presumably to remind the local population who was in charge now: one Qutb al-Din Aibak, the Ghurid-aligned conqueror of Delhi and founder of the Delhi Sultanate, whose military efforts were part of the hard-to-follow wave of Central and South Asian conquests and counter-conquests that played across centuries now remote.

The Ghurids, who were Tajiks, seem to be one of those peoples that pop up in history with some regularity, a minor group from somewhere remote from most urbanized civilizations, suddenly expanding by conquering its neighbors and basically kicking butt for a few centuries across a wide area before fizzling out. They also had the distinction of being also first Muslim conquerors of north-central India.

Quwwatu’l-Islam is noted for any number of reasons, including its columns.

Their distinctiveness has been long noted. From Treasure spots of the world, by Walter Bentley Woodbury (1875): “… no two columns of this structure are alike, and this peculiarity applies also to the almost endless number forming the colonnade surrounding the building… the portico of the Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque framing the courtyard area consists of columns/pillars from destroyed Hindu and Jain temples…”

Views of the courtyard.

Details. including what look like restorations.

In the middle of the courtyard is the Iron Pillar, covered with faint inscriptions.

Three Raj-era tablets offer translation in Arabic, Hindi and English. Perhaps not up to the latest translation standards, but worth a read all the same.

The pillar is an echo of an even earlier time, created during the Gupta Empire in the fourth to the sixth centuries as reckoned by the Gregorian calendar, and thought to laud the warrior deeds and memory of Chandragupta II (d. 415), also known as Chandra. What is it doing at Quwwatu’l-Islam? Brought from somewhere else as a bit of loot by one ruler or another many years after its creation, though exactly who or when or from where are matters of scholarly debate.

More.

The grounds also include a surprising amount of green space.

We only spent a short time in Delhi, but it didn’t seem overloaded with green space.

Tokyo Skytree & Senso-ji

Posted on March 23, 2025 by admin

I’ve been seeing ads recently for a fine-looking daypack (carryon pack, the ad calls), since the bots surely know that I just did such things as take airplanes to far-flung destinations, use a credit card overseas and bought the likes of an e-sim. The daypack’s array of pockets and their layout seem useful, too. Then there’s the price: $300. No.

As if to try to answer my immediate objection, soon a new ad for the same item appeared: “Why would you buy a $300 pack?” it asks. I don’t stick around for the answer. I have a fine daypack already. More than one, in fact, were pressed into service during the RTW ’25. One went on my back into the airplane, the other, empty, was waiting in the checked bag for light duty during the trip.

For all the years I spent in Japan, Tokyo didn’t represent much of that time. All together I spent maybe a week there, including a delightful visit in November 1993: young marrieds out on a long weekend. Wish I could remember the name of the minshuku where we stayed, somewhere in the sprawl of Tokyo. I close my eyes and I can see its tidy lobby, paper walls, delicate prints, narrow dark stairs, tatami underfoot. Our hosts were most hospitable, from a long line of inn keepers, I think. On the wall was a framed drawing of a banjo by Pete Seeger, along with his signature. Some decades earlier, he had stayed there.

This time we stayed in a guest room at the residence of Kyoko and her husband and two nearly grown children not far from the University of Tokyo, and had a pleasant visit. Good to see old friends, wherever they are. Yuriko and Kyoko go way back. Kyoko spent time in Texas, Corsicana specifically, and we traveled with her to Arizona in ’97. After Lilly was born, she came to Chicago to help out for several weeks.

One thing we missed in the early ’90s was Tokyo Skytree, rising 2,080 feet over Sumida Ward, and for good reason: the tower was completed only in 2012 as a TV tower and a tourist attraction. We arrived in the afternoon of February 14.

Who has the wherewithal to build such things in the early 21st century? In Japan, anyway, railroad companies do, in this case Tobu Railway Co. Ltd., a Kanto regional line that offers some sweet destinations, including the mountain resort of Nikko and the hot springs around Kinugawa Onsen, both of which I only know by reputation. Naturally, Japanese RR companies are never just that, and in this case while transport remains a core business, the conglomerate also includes entertainment venues, hotels, a commercial real estate and construction arm, and retail operations, especially department stores at major terminals.

Judging by my previous and recent experience at the department stores owned by regional RRs, the department store not only isn’t dying in Japan, it flourishes. They are serving a much more dense population, of course, and one that travels by train, but there’s also that matter of stocking goods people want to buy, including basements full of exceptionally good food. The stores’ bustle is something American department stores can only dream about in their dying reverie.

Up in the Tokyo Skytree bulb are a couple of tourist observation decks. The combo ticket, while expensive, isn’t outrageously more than just visiting the lower deck, so we opted for access to the deck at 350 meters and the narrower one at 450 meters, one after the other. It turned out to be easier to take good pictures from the lower level.

Busy, but not sardine-can busy.

Now those are some views, showing just how dense metro Tokyo is.

Below is the Sumida River, which wasn’t always so densely populated.

Night on the Sumida River – Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1881

“Night on the Sumida River” by Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1881

Three hundred fifty meters high? That’s well and good, but nothing as impressive as more than a thousand feet: 1,150, to be almost exact.

Window washers came by as we looked out at 350 meters. Hanging, as far as I could tell, by two wires attached to their car, and not their persons. They seemed pretty blasé about that, but anyone who felt otherwise (like me) would be in the wrong line of work.

On the other side of the river, and visible from the tower, is Senso-ji temple, in the Asakusa neighborhood. We still had some afternoon light after visiting Skytree, so we decided to go to the temple, a short train ride and a longer walk away. A long pedestrian street (Nakamise-dōri) goes through Asakusa to the temple grounds.

Hōzōmon gate.

The temple’s other gate is known as Kaminarimon, and if I’d known about its noteworthiness, we’d have backtracked a bit to see it. Apparently we entered the Nakamise-dōri at the middle, and so missed Kaminarimon (and it took me a while to figure that out just today). Ah, well.

There has been a Buddhist temple on the site since our 7th century, with the usual history of fires and rebuilding down the centuries, including the most recent cycle in the 20th century. The early 1945 air raids destroyed the temple, but rebuilding was complete by the 1970s. Said to be one of the most-visited religious sites in the world, the temple has the advantage in that regard of being square within the world’s most populous metro.

The temple is dedicated to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, which might also help explain its popularity. Who doesn’t need some compassion sometimes? Kannon is popular when it comes temple dedications, with Shitennō-ji, Kiyomizu-dera and Sanjūsangen-dō also dedicated to Kannon, all in the Kansai region, and all of which I visited at one time or another.

The Main Hall.

No shortage of visitors.

Not a bad afternoon in Tokyo, visiting popular structures from the 21st and 7th centuries, respectively, and being fully alive in the present.

The Brandenburg Gate

Posted on March 20, 2025 by admin

To mark the spring equinox, winter pulled hard in the tug o’ war between it and spring, with snow falling overnight. By day, spring pulled back, melting most of the snow.

The weather during almost all of our trip turned out better than expected. Japan was dry and fairly chilly some days, but not others, even up north in Tokyo. As for north-central India, February is a good time to visit: slightly cool at night, warm or very warm during the day, and no rain at all, much like the days we spent in Mexico City. Later in the year, I understand, heat begins to oppress the region and soon the monsoon comes. In Dubai: consistently warm, almost hot in the afternoons, but never unbearable desert heat, which will come soon enough as well.

Germany and the Czech Republic were a pleasant surprise, mostly. During the first few days, temps were cool but not cold. The warmish Saturday Jay and I went to Museumsinsel, Berliners were out in numbers, sitting and lying around on the green space next to the Berliner Dom. Only toward the end of our visit did it get as cold as we’d expected, just above freezing, and there was light rain the day we returned to Berlin from Prague, and a little more the cold morning we left.

The day I got back to northern Illinois was warm and pleasant, until it wasn’t. That tug o’ war in action.

The very first thing I wanted to see in Berlin this time around was the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor). I’d seen it before, of course, but let’s say the circumstances were a little different. On July 8, 1983, I wrote, a little confusingly:

The gallery [National Gallery] wasn’t that large, which was a virtue, and later we headed for the Reichstag to catch a bus. En route we passed as close to the Brandenburg Gate as you can without getting shot at.

I suppose I meant that we walked from the western National Gallery just south of the Tiergarten – not the National Gallery building in the east, since we didn’t visit East Berlin until the next day – to the Reichstag building, then a museum, to catch a bus westward, toward our hostel. Such a walk would take you within sight of the Brandenburg Gate, but not next to it, since the gate was in the east, behind the Wall.

These days, one can stroll right up to the Brandenburg Gate and pass under it. A lot of people do. Jay and I did on March 7.

Pass through going west, and pretty soon you’re within sight of the Reichstag building.

The ghost of the Berlin Wall runs through the platz behind the Reichstag.

The front of the Reichstag building.

Unlike 40 years ago, when you could wander in and see a few rooms, going in these days involved timed tickets and other rigmarole, so we didn’t bother. Instead we repaired to a small establishment a short ways into the Tiergarten for refreshments. In my case, a soft drink I’d never heard of before, though I could have encountered it in its place of origin, Vienna. Not bad.

The Brandenburg Gate has been the site of a goodly share of history since Friedrich Wilhelm II had it built, such as Napoleon parading through (and swiping part of it), soldiers posted atop during the Spartacist uprising, and President Kennedy not really calling himself a jelly doughnut nearby.

Events continue. Late afternoon on the 9th, we saw one ourselves, a rally to the west of the gate, voicing German support for Ukraine.

The gate was catching the setting sun about then.

Nice. Glad to make it to post-reunification Berlin.

The Burj Khalifa

Posted on March 19, 2025 by admin

If it weren’t too much trouble, I’d rummage through my paper archives – paper agglomeration – and dig up a roundtable interview I did in the early 2000s for the magazine I edited at the time. A number of local, meaning Chicago, architects gathered in a meeting room and I recorded their conversation, publishing an edited version. One of the participants was Adrian Smith.

That came to mind in the shadow of the Buji Khalifa in Dubai on the last day of February.

As an architect with HOK, Smith designed the Burj Khalifa (burj = tower). One day I will dig up the interview, to see whether he mentioned it. I’m not sure of the timing, but HOK might have been in discussions for the commission at that very moment, since construction started in 2004. Regardless, quite a thing. A signal achievement for Smith, whatever you think of very tall buildings, and not just for its height, but for its elegant stacking effect.

Dubai is eager to point out that the Buji Khalifa is currently the tallest manmade structure in the world (2,722 feet), taller than any poser in East Asia or obscure TV tower in North Dakota or behind the former Iron Curtain. For casual visitors, two observation decks are advertised, and no doubt there are even more expensive, unadvertised options, including for the rarefied few, going to the very top.

The ordinary tourist deck is at a lower level (floors 124-125) than the one at a significant premium (floor 148), which offers welcome refreshments (coffee and dates), access to a lounge and – mostly importantly – no waiting around in line to get in.

The Burj Khalifa is popular. You will wait in line if you pick the ordinary deck — about 45 minutes in my case — and you’ll see a spot of overselling on the way.

It wasn’t the waiting itself that was irritating, but the fact I always sensed that the elevators were going to be around the next corner, only to be wrong a half-dozen times. But I’m being churlish. All that grouchiness vanished as soon as I got on the elevator — which was a straight shot up to the deck, no changing cars necessary — and especially as soon as I reached the view.

Looking down at the Dubai Mall, and the massive nearby fountain, which erupts periodically with a height of its own.

Behind the Dubai Mall (from my vantage).

Next to the Dubai Mall.

I started losing track of directions. Dubai spreads out in a number of them.

Emaar being a major real estate developer in the region, controlled by this fellow, autocrat of Dubai.

Burj Khalifa, opened in 2010, was one of its projects, along with the Dubai Mall. To judge by how often the name Emaar appears on large buildings in Dubai, I’d guess it and legions of guest workers built most of modern Dubai as well.

The Taj Mahal

Posted on March 18, 2025 by admin

Back in the planning stages for our recent trip, which was last fall, Yuriko wasn’t entirely persuaded that we should visit India. Not at least for any reason I might think it was a good one: because we would already be on that side of the world (more or less) by visiting Japan; because we’d never gotten around to India, even in ’94; or because as a modern state built on a long series of storied civilizations, it would surely would be an interesting place to visit.

No matter, I had an ace in the hole. “Of course, we’ll be able to see the Taj Mahal,” I said. That did it.

So, on February 22, we did.

From a number of vantages.

I sent the first image to a number of friends via email, since I didn’t expect to find many postcards in India, or if I did, I wouldn’t want to deal with a post office to mail them, especially considering that delivery would be uncertain anyway. The email message:

A physical postcard from India is unlikely, but here’s an image you aren’t likely to see in a card or Instagram. You are likely so see it, however, if you stand in front of the structure, as we did… Entirely worth the effort to get here. I didn’t mind the crowds that much — they are a happy crowd, after all, and you’re one of them.

Even in a crowd, assuming they aren’t jostling you, you can pause, stare and consider where you are. The Taj Mahal. A place only ever seen in pictures before, considered one of the top works of human beings. In person, your eyes are apt to agree.

The story of the Taj Mahal is too well known to relate here, as are descriptions of its beauty and architectural transcendence. But I will say this: What would the Indian tourism industry do if the Mughals hadn’t been so keen to build monumental structures? The Taj Mahal is just the crown jewel of a large collection that has survived to our time.

One can visit the terrace.

For closeups of the intricate marble work.

It is believed that an eventual total of 20,000+ masons, stone-cutters, inlayers, carvers, painters, calligraphers, dome builders and other artisans from throughout the realm, and probably beyond, worked more than two decades on the mausoleum and outbuildings.

Inlay, not painting. Twenty-eight kinds of stones, I’ve read.

Imagine the graceful lines of the Taj Mahal main dome without the companion minarets. That would be like Saturn without its rings.

You can also go inside the chamber where ornate slabs sit above the internment sites of the empress Mumtaz Mahal, and, almost as an afterthought, the emperor Shah Jahan, who ordered the Taj Mahal built in the 17th century. We joined the line.

The mausoleum faces away from the river, but it is back there. The view from the mausoleum of the wide Yamuna River, tributary of the Ganges.

A structure that doesn’t get enough love. The main gate of the grounds, through which you pass to see the mausoleum. It is outshone by the mausoleum, but wow.

Not everyone loves the Taj, however.

The Kamakura Daibutsu

Posted on March 17, 2025 by admin

Mere hours after I returned home on Friday evening, an intense burst of wind ’round midnight toppled the Wisconsin Buddha in my back yard, among other things, such as most of our back yard fence. Guess it’s better that I’m here to deal with the debris in the yard, calling our insurance company, etc.

Setting the Wisconsin Buddha upright was an easy part of cleaning up the back yard. Our little blue-green statue may serve as a reminder of the impermanence of things, but it hasn’t been completely destroyed by time. Yet.

You can also say the same for the much larger, much better known Kamakura Daibutsu, or the Big Buddha of Kamakura, a city on the edge of metro Tokyo-Yokohama. We visited on a cool and sunny, pleasant day in mid-February. It sure looks permanent, but you could say that’s illusion.

Something else to consider when you face a bronze of this heft: Does the size of a Buddha, or more exactly Buddharūpa (depictions of Buddha), matter when it comes to conveying Buddhist ideas?

I can’t call myself expert enough to answer that, but somehow I suspect not. When it comes to impermanence, my small Buddha would seem to have just as much to teach. Just not as many students.

The Big Buddha at Kamakura dates from a period in Japanese history known as the Kamakura period, which is all of our 13th century and more, and a time that, for a while anyway, this seaside town was the hub of government for the Japanese islands: an early shogunate, emerging from the winning side of a bloody war between clans, and in fact the moment in history when the samurai caste consolidated its power. How cool is that? We’re talking about a capital founded by samurai, for samurai.

Buddhist sects flowered under the new order, I think not coincidentally, and with enough vim to leave behind temples and memorials of all sorts in the region – such as the massive bronze Daibutsu. These days, it attracts tourists in numbers probably undreamed of by earlier centuries, when trickles of pilgrims or scholars or mystics came.

The seated Buddha, 43 feet or so to the top of his head, weighs about as much as seven and a half Mack trucks with trailers. It is an Amida Buddha that began as a large long-gone wooden statue, a structure much more impermanent than the bronze that came later (about AD 1252), its existence due to a vigorous new branch of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan in Kamakura times. Down the centuries since then, various halls built around the giant have burned down and been rebuilt (but ultimately not) and the statue itself has been damaged in earthquakes and floods and repaired and restored and listed as a special site, including part of a nomination as a World Heritage Site.

Nice peripheral details.

For ¥50 extra, about 50 cents, you can go inside. For a moment, I was giddy as a schoolboy. I get to go inside a giant, ancient Japanese statue?

The status shows its age – how susceptible it is to the passage of time – its impermanence – more in there.

Looking into the head of the Kamakura Daibutsu.

Outside again. How is it that the metal giant has such graceful lines?

It’s popular.

Having your photo made at a tourist site: near universal, isn’t it? It’s regarded as tinged with silliness, this custom. Some people think that, anyway.

No. Revel in it.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling