Key #42: Cinderellas

Many wonders are stunning and breathtaking; some are more subtle, even subdued - yet beautiful and often heartwarming. Rather surprisingly, there are also a mundane wonder and a bashful one, but even they are, in fact, steeped in history. One would likely presume that the line is to be drawn here because, after all, it must take something rather exceptional to make a wonder; something very much unlike the above picture that is cute and somewhat naive but otherwise clearly unremarkable - that is, unless you know that it was painted on a manhole cover!

Try to search for "manhole cover art", and helpful Google will inevitably prompt "Japan". To be fair, the art in question isn't limited to Japan - there are passionate artists of that genre in, at least, some Western countries, too. Individuals, to be precise, while Japanese manhole artists are almost as ubiquitous as manholes themselves. As a result, charming baby animals, pastoral landscapes, cartoonish towers and bridges, and the like can be found literally anywhere in Japan. It figures that one of them is located right in front of 

Even in Japan, the museum's name is highlighted by no less than three exclamation marks - after all, the very combination of words the name consists of is almost an oxymoron. Another one waits inside the museum, literally right around the corner

The carefully chosen oxymorons set the stage for the rest of the "cupnoodles family" - an hour-long culinary class where participants cook a chicken ramen from scratch; 

a workshop inviting every visitor to design hir own cup to be filled with actual blazing-hot noodle soup and taken home as a practical souvenir (or eaten on the go!); 

or a personal exhibition devoted to the creator of that famous dish, Momofuku Ando, whose life was a rollercoaster of trials and errors 

It only makes sense that if a cover and a utensil fit in, so will a crossing - and a particularly big one might even become a real celebrity and earn an honorary addition to its name. That's what happened to what's now known as Shibuya Scrambling Crossing - an intersection that erupts about every two minutes sending up to 2500 people in all directions at the same time. 

Celebrating something unique is as easy and natural as to admire a beautiful princess - and many people and countries do that. Japan might be among those few who've taken it at least one step farther by finding (and, in fact, creating) uniqueness in something incorrectly perceived as trite and uninspiring - in other words, by turning Cinderellas into princesses.