Tips for surviving work travel

There are some simple ways for the road warrior to stay sane and healthy, says Harvard Business Review.

The Harvard Management Tip of the Day offers quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review and HBR.org (www.hbr.org). Any opinions expressed are not endorsed by Reuters.

"Travelling for work is draining. Most people return home feeling depleted from delays, lack of sleep, overeating, and overworking.

Try these three things to help you renew when you're on the road:

1. Get enough sleep. This is the most important thing you can do. Calculate how much sleep you'll get when you arrive and if it's not enough, make up for it on the plane. Bring a mask and earplugs.

2. Start your days with exercise. It doesn't need to be extensive. Just 20-30 minutes will improve your mood. But, don't do this at the expense of sleep.

3. Avoid the minibar. There is nothing good in there. If you really can't resist, ask the hotel to remove it before you check in."

-- Today's management tip was adapted from "The Six Keys to Surviving on the Road" by Tony Schwartz.

Sumo wrestlers lift city's spirits

The pale, glistening bodies of two mammoth sumo wrestlers slammed together amid piles of wreckage, charred boats in the background, in this Japanese port district, eerily silent after many residents died in the March earthquake and tsunami.

A loud thud broke the silence and the victorious wrestler lifted his sweat-drenched body as the scorching summer sun rose out of the ocean at a summer training camp in an oceanside area of Soma, devastated by the March 11 disaster.

The wrestlers wanted both to give back to the community, some 270 km northeast of Tokyo, that has hosted their summer training for 20 years -- and also redeem their ancient sport, tainted by recent scandals.

"I'm still scared of aftershocks, but I want to fight my heart out for my family and make people in Soma smile again," said winning wrestler Oazuma, 21, wiping his wide forehead.

A metal roof was the only thing left of the sumo summer gym, or "stable," after the massive 9.0 quake triggered a tsunami that left parts of Soma a pile of rubble and set off the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at a nuclear plant just 50 km away.

Some 80,000 have been forced to leave their homes near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which continues to leak radiation -- including the family of wrestler Oazuma.

"My dad and mum lost their jobs, and although I'm just a sumo beginner I ended up as the sole family breadwinner," he added, noting that his family remains in temporary housing.

Having the wrestlers return as if it was any other summer is seen by many as a vital step to lift morale as survivors make fragile attempts to rebuild their shattered lives.

"We live in the shadow of Fukushima. Many people have already left this area, others are pondering such a move," said Hiroko Mori, 29, as she cheered on the wrestlers with her daughter asleep in a pram beside her despite the heat.

"I love sumo and come to see them practice here every year. It's great to have them back," added Mori.

Between the stable and the shore the land was unnaturally flat, with weeds growing amid shattered house foundations and bald cement slabs. Some 460 residents and over a thousand houses were swept away throughout Soma -- with around 20,400 dead or missing across Japan.

"Mori is right. Our wrestlers are like 'Nadeshiko Japan'," shouted a pensioner in his seventies, referring to women's soccer team that became a nation-wide sensation and gave the country a sense of unity after winning the World Cup in July.

MAKE OR BREAK

Stable founder Hayao Shiga, himself a former sumo wrestler, said he stared in shock at satellite photos of the area -- a vast stretch of nothing but debris -- just after the disaster.

"I couldn't believe my eyes, but as soon as I saw the metal roof of the stable still there I thought we can return to Soma, pick up the pieces and start all over again," he added.

Sumo training is steeped in tradition and due to its ties to Japan's ancient Shinto religion, some aspects -- such as throwing salt to the earthen ring for purification -- take on a ritual flavor. Wrestlers build strength through primitive methods such as lifting stone and pushing against each other.

"Faster, faster! Hold the body lower, or you'll get pushed out immediately!" shouted the former stable master as the wrestlers threw their bodies against each other.

But rebuilding is far from an easy task, with sumo as a whole at a critical make-or-break point on top of everything Shiga's stable faces.

The sport, already struggling with a declining fan base as young people desert it for baseball or soccer, was hit by a corrosive succession of scandals including match-fixing, drugs and drink, and the hazing death of a trainee.

"As our sport slowly licks its wounds, we want the people here to carry on fighting with us," said Yukihiro Kimura, a sumo referee, as around him wrestlers energetically shared their post-training breakfast with local residents.

In another show of support for the area, which has taken an economic hit with the shipment of many agricultural products banned due to radioactive contamination, the traditional "chanko" stew was filled with local radishes and Chinese cabbage, which the wrestlers devoured.

"I traveled through the quake-affected areas with other wrestlers and one thing was true time and again," Kimura said.

"We were there to cheer up the survivors, but their resilience and determination to carry on against all odds ended up inspiring us."

 

India temple treasure brings riches

A stream of bare-chested religious devotees step gingerly through metal detectors at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in southern India as armed commandos with AK-47s guard perhaps one of the world's greatest treasures to surface in recent times.

For months now, following a court order to prise open subterranean vaults sealed for centuries at the heart of sleepy Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of balmy Kerala state, shell-shocked experts have been coming to terms with the vast hidden hoard, estimated at one trillion Indian rupees, or $22 billion.

In a nation where 500 million people are still mired in poverty, the find has been a revelation, stoking debate over how to best safeguard and use this newly discovered wealth at a time of financial uncertainty and modernization across India.

Put in a broader context, the find in the lush, spice-growing but relatively undeveloped Kerala, where infrastructure is patchy and per capita income lags richer northern states, could salvage the state's rickety finances, lift millions out of poverty and even help wipe out a quarter of India's overall fiscal deficit.

The treasure, an accumulation of religious offerings to the Hindu deity Lord Vishnu, includes a four-foot high gold idol studded with emeralds, gold and silver ornaments and sacks of diamonds.

"It's been a real shocker," said Manish Arora, a devotee in a white cotton mundu walking bare-foot outside the seven-storey 16th century pyramidal temple complex. "Nobody thought there'd be money like that here.

"They should use it for public welfare, for development."

But in a deeply spiritual and religious country, where even photographic documentation of the stash is barred to avoid defiling the site, any decision to remove the treasure from the temple vaults and its deity could prove highly controversial.

Some politicians, however, have suggested categorizing the treasure and selling off less historically important items like diamonds or gold bars, then investing the proceeds as part of a trust to generate steady, recurring income for social causes.

"Of course money should not be kept idle," said O. Rajagopal, a member of the Hindu nationalist opposition group, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"It can be used in such a way that it generates more wealth and that wealth can be utilized in various useful ways like spending in education, or hospitals," he told Reuters in a small flat in Kerala.

Calls have also been made to display the treasures in a newly built museum that could prove a major tourism draw.

POLITICS, GOLD, CORRUPTION

Since the hoard came to light, Kerala's chief minister Oommen Chandy pledged to beef up security around the temple as it "naturally will be under threat."

Rather than a heist by tomb robbers, however, some fear the threat lies more with a broader malaise pervading India today as supercharged capitalism foments greater corruption in politics.

"According to my calculation this treasure constitutes only a small percentage of wealth lost in scams recently by the central government," said M. A. Baby, a leader of Kerala's Communist parties, a leading opposition force in the state.

Public anger has swollen after a spate of corruption scandals ranging from a multi-billion dollar telecoms licensing scam, shady Commonwealth Games deals and illegal mining that have triggered mass anti-graft protests and policy paralysis.

"Political people have been looting the country for so long, so how can the normal layman believe they'll safeguard this money," said Ajith Kumar, a tour guide standing in the shade outside the temple.

"The best way they can keep the money is to keep it inside the temple. That's the simplest solution."

The stash might never have come to light had not a frail 70-year-old silver-bearded devotee filed a legal petition challenging the royal family of Travancore, custodians of the temple for centuries, demanding greater transparency and better management of the long rumored, but never publicly revealed, riches sealed within six subterranean vaults.

Sundara Rajan's petition led the Kerala High Court to order the government to take over the assets, but the royal family appealed to India's Supreme Court, the country's highest court, that ordered a detailed inventory and expert reports on the treasure, before making a judgment expected in October.

The success of the petition is a testament to India's strong legal tradition compared with fellow Asian economic powerhouse China, where individuals often struggle for justice in the face of corrupt officials, pliable judges and a stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party.

While the stash hasn't become a major political controversy yet, there have been precedents in India for religious sites becoming wider social flashpoints.

The Ayodhya mosque in northern India, demolished by rampaging Hindu mobs in 1992, sparked bloody clashes that killed around 2000 people, and an ongoing legal battle for control over the disputed religious site.

As India globalizes and swelling middle classes become increasingly materialistic, underlying religious beliefs remain deep-rooted in the world's largest democracy of 1.2 billion people, where 80 percent are Hindus and 13 percent are Muslims.

"Now we are fearful," said Anju Parvathy, dressed in a dark blue sari and gold ornaments on her doorstep near the temple's north gate. "We don't want the gold. It's god's property."

The courts, aware of the risk of fanning religious sensitivities, are unlikely to order a total redistribution of the temple wealth, but broker a judicious compromise between all the different interests.

"The supreme court is the final authority of the country, they can take any decision, the government has to comply with it," minister Chandy told Reuters in his office in a historic building not far from the temple.

PROPERTY RIGHTS TO GODS

Yet despite India's secular constitution and modernity, its laws grant property rights to gods.

Indian law carries provisions for deities to effectively own property, meaning the $22 billion worth of offerings made to Lord Vishnu at the temple could remain sealed in the vaults.

"This treasure belongs not to the state, not to the maharajah, not to the people at large, it belongs to the deity only," said the BJP's Rajagopal.

Rajagopal said it was possible using astrological methods to divine the will of the deity on how to potentially invest or divest part of the treasure.

"That deity can own property and can sell property so the whole property belongs to the deity," he added.

Moving forward, however, even traditionalists acknowledge a need for an evolution of India's social and religious fabric.

"We have to move with the modern world. At the same time we want to keep the values also," said M.G. Sasibhooshan, a historian seen to be close to the royal family of Travancore.

"Religion is a great force. It has a role in evolving ethics. Striking a balance between religion and change is the idea for an Indian," he said. "But it's not easy."

 

Queen, Obama boost Irish tourism

Numbers of tourists visiting Ireland rose more than 15% in the second quarter from a year ago, data showed, as high-profile visits by Britain's Queen Elizabeth and U.S. President Barack Obama helped paint the country in a positive light.

Ireland's popularity as a holiday destination has dropped in recent years as price increases driven by a property boom put off cost-conscious travelers.

A subsequent financial crash also put the country in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2009 and 2010.

Figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that nearly 1.8 million people visited Ireland from April to June of this year, with an 8% increase in visitors from its most important tourist market, the UK.

Queen Elizabeth made an historic visit in May followed within days by a one-day trip by Obama, triggering a wave of overseas interest.

The jump in visitors in April to June was also helped by a fall-off in travellers in the same period of 2010, when a volcanic ash cloud in Iceland closed airports across Europe.

"Anecdotal reports from our industry partners around ... Ireland confirm a more positive picture overall than this time last year," said Niall Gibbons, chief executive of Tourism Ireland.

"However, we know that distribution of visitors is uneven, with some areas performing better than others. The current outlook for North America, mainland Europe and emerging markets is positive for the coming months.

"The economic situation in Britain remains fragile and we are keeping the market under close review."

Ireland's government, anxious to stoke economic growth, has cut sales tax for restaurants and hotels to help tourism.

The tourist sector is Ireland's largest home-grown industry, contributing over four percent of annual economic output and employing over 200,000 people.

 

Kingston a truly lovely city, prisons and all

There are nine prisons in and around Kingston, and bad guys go there for years.

I was given 48 hours. Not behind bars, mind you, but on the loose in an attractive city that's one of Ontario's most historic and prosperous.

Part of Kingston's charm lies in location. It faces the eastern end of Lake Ontario -- some sailing events for the 1976 Olympics were staged there -- at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Cataraqui rivers.

Part lies in its handsome limestone buildings. Some are 200 years old, but Kingston's beginnings are even older. Founded as a French fort in 1673, it was renamed in 1783 and was Canada's capital from 1841 to 1844. Sir John A. Macdonald, our first prime minister, called it home.

The city is said to be almost recession-proof, thanks to the payrolls of the penal system, the armed forces (CFB Kingston and Royal Military College) and a major university (Queens).

It's evident in a core area that has the vibrancy so many communities' downtowns had before they were "malled'' to death. It helps explain why Kingston has 200-plus restaurants, said to be the highest number per capita in the country.

For a quick overview, hop aboard one of the green and cream Confederation Tour trolleys owned and operated by the chamber of commerce.

The route includes a square behind city hall where there's been a weekly market since 1801, stately St. George Cathedral, a 54-room limestone mansion on King St., Queen's University's impressive campus, and Royal Military College, where our guide recommends visiting Fort Frederick Tower, one of four Martello towers the British built in the 1840s to defend Kingston.

The trolley tour takes only 50 minutes, leaving time for other attractions in and near Kingston. Consider these:

Fort Henry. Our trolley guide called the sunset ceremony Wednesday nights during July and August "spectacular.'' The fort runs several theme tours. The newest focuses on daring escapes by prisoners from the 1800s through the First and Second World Wars.

Canada's Penitentiary Museum. Not for the fainthearted. Some of the shockers are from the 1800s: the Water Bath, used in the U.S. until one prisoner died; The Box, in which inmates, mainly women, were confined as long as nine hours and which was used frequently in Kingston. But at least one, The Strapping Bench, was used as recently as 1969, at Manitoba's Stony Mountain Penitentiary.

There's an exact replica of the cells in the maximum security institution right across the street. Segregated inmates such as Paul Bernardo and ex-colonel Russell Williams spend 23 hours a day there in one of these. I stepped inside, closed the door, and found myself thinking capital punishment would be more humane.

A Thousand Islands cruise. Kingston 1000 Islands Cruises does trips from downtown, but departures from Gananoque or Rockport, east of Kingston, are more scenic.

Rideau Canal, Ontario's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jones Falls Lockstation, less than 50 km northeast of Kingston, is the "jewel of the system,'' according to a Rideau insider. The Ontario and Quebec tour operators I was with certainly loved it. Take Highway 15 to tiny Morton, then county road 11.

--- --- ---

IF YOU GO

ACCOMMODATION: Downtown is my preference. The new, all-suites Residence Inn quoted me $199, including hot breakfast, for midweek in early May ($20 more for a water view). The newly renovated Confederation Place Hotel, down the street, quoted $127, including continental breakfast, $15 more for a water view.

EAT/DRINK: Locals recommended Morrison's for breakfast, Woodenheads for pizza, Pilot House for fish 'n chips. All are right downtown. Our group dined well at Residence Inn's West Seventy 6 Grill. I enjoyed a pint at Kingston Brewing Co., 34 Clarence St.

INFORMATION: Phone 1-866-665-3326, visit www.kingstoncanada.com.

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Update The Gatineau-Wakefield steam train mentioned in the Aug. 6 column has suspended operations because of track damage.

Doug English can be reached at denglishtravel@gmail.com or by mail c/o London Free Press, P.O.E. Box 2280, London, Ont. N6A 4G1.

Hong Kong's hidden doors

HONG KONG -- Once upon a time in a country far, far away -- about 20 years ago in Hong Kong, to be more precise -- a man who loved cooking used the middle floor of his three-storey house to entertain his extended family.

Family members adored his cooking just as much as he enjoyed working at the wok, and started bringing their friends to meals. Word spread, and these friends started to bring their friends, until the happy chef was feeding ever larger numbers of people many of whom he'd never met before, but at considerable personal expense.

"How would it be," suggested someone, "if we paid for our meals, and then you could give us your favourite dishes and we'd all be happy?"

And so what had been a private party became a "private kitchen" or "hidden door" restaurant with very limited seating, only open to those whose delighted friends passed on the name and number of the chef.

Hong Kong's energetic entrepreneurial spirit ensured the idea was swiftly copied until many private homes were receiving paying guests for a variety of cuisines. Some were short-lived, but others became so successful they moved to commercial premises, although still on a small scale, and often in unexpected, tucked away locations.

Now visitors to Hong Kong who plan ahead can book themselves everything from classic Cantonese to first-rate French cooking in spaces such as former offices, an antique shop, or afloat on a tiny sampan with a single table.

"As far as I know I was the first," says Master Ng, chef-proprietor of Red Kitchen, "more than 20 years ago."

He was eventually enticed away from home cooking to work for a famous Chinese restaurant group before starting Red Kitchen in a flea market in the leafy New Territories, where a former candle-making factory is now filled with assorted small shops, stalls and restaurants.

Every lunchtime Master Ng offers meals to a handful of guests in part of a small and cluttered antiques shop. This may not be a private house, but it feels little different. The shop's owner sits in one corner scanning the Internet, there's horse racing from Happy Valley playing on a muted television, and the space is otherwise full of traditional furniture, calligraphy, carved screens and homely knick-knacks.

A feast of five Cantonese dishes and one soup is produced, including Ng's most famous dish: Boiled boned duck stuffed with sticky rice and chestnuts, which falls apart into a mouth-pleasing mix of soft textures and gentle flavours. The duck also makes a soup with Chinese herbs that give it a rich mulberry colour and a pleasant tang.

The manager of a nearby wine shop who speaks some English acts as server, and others from the market help Ng set up tables for up to 85 in its public areas in the evening. But the chef is clear his operation still counts as a private kitchen.

"At a restaurant anyone can walk in and choose from the menu. But at a private kitchen there is no menu, the chef must have a very good reputation because there's no advertising, and you cannot just walk in. Only that chef can be the chef, and he can't ask his brother to fill in."

The space is still technically regarded as private, which is one of the ways the owners of hidden doors creatively get round licensing complications. Back in Hong Kong Island's busy Wanchai district another private kitchen manages to run in a sixth-floor office space by notionally being a private members' club. Despite its location in a district that's more Suzie Wong than crepes Suzette, Le Blanc offers an ambitious menu of casually executed French dishes. There's an element of choice gained by ticking boxes for up to nine courses including bread, pate, and a mid-meal palate-cleansing sorbet.

The restaurant can actually seat around 50, although each table is in a separate space barely larger than itself created by drapes suspended from rough wooden beams. The environment is not one for the dignified contemplation of the cuisine, but bright and busy, with bursts of laughter swirling from neighbouring cubicles. The decor is a jumble of chandeliers, Christmas lights, candelabra, dried flowers, ceramics, battered prints of famous oil paintings and mismatched furniture.

The food is a Hong Kong idea of French, and the standard enthusiastically amateur although almost all the ingredients are brought in from France. A champagne ginger-carrot soup is good and a baked banana with creme anglaise and yuzu icecream a fine end to the meal, but the sole with a shrimp spread in a yellow wine sauce could be both a little warmer and more generously sauced. Nevertheless a night at Le Blanc is a thoroughly Hong Kong experience, and after three years struggling to establish its reputation the restaurant is now deservedly popular.

Those wanting classic French food will find it in Central at Liberty Private Works, a third-floor space a stiff climb from an entrance between two boutiques. There's seating for about 15 at an L-shaped counter around the cooking area. This began as a test kitchen for a new bistro, where the chef tried recipes on friends until the bistro's opening. But the tiny space proved so popular there were calls for its revival, and in April newly returned Hong Kong-born Canadian Vicky Cheng re-opened it.

"I told them we can serve the same food at the bistro with candlelight, tablecloths and proper service, but they still like to come here. I think it's the interactive experience."

Cheng believes it is classic techniques rather than imported ingredients that make meals French, and although he has little choice but to fly in white truffles, he believes in applying what he learned at Toronto's Auberge du Pommier to the best of local ingredients, and he enjoys explaining to diners the dishes they've just seen assembled in front of them.

"This is egg yolk raviolo; spinach, ricotta, and white truffle; parmesan foam and Osietra caviar. Begin by breaking the yolk so that it becomes part of the sauce." There's an explosion of colour as the yellow egg flows into the caviar, and with each mouthful the background tang of truffle. A mini baguette is provided for wiping up every last delicious drop of what is just one of eight small but intense courses.

The private kitchen idea has now become so popular in Hong Kong that the label has been employed to revive forms of dining that predated it, including Shun Kee Typhoon Shelter Seafood, where dinner is taken aboard a traditional wooden sampan. The trip begins at a small pier near the Excelsior Hotel, where jolly, barefoot Madam Hing helps guests aboard her narrow, battered, tire-hung craft, and then propels it off through a bobbing shanty town of boats using an oar projecting from the stern.

Almost the entire deck is taken up with a table for up to eight, and its a puzzle as to where the cooking is going to take place, until after a short journey the sampan nuzzles nose-on to a well-lit rectangular raft fitted with stainless steel equipment, ablaze with woks on gas flames, all attended by busy chefs.

Madam Hing moves to the prow to receive dishes and bring them to the table. Giant meaty whelks must be pried from their pretty spiral shells using wooden skewers. Clams "typhoon shelter style" are warm in a black bean sauce with a hint of chili, but the climax of the meal, as the towers light up on both sides of the harbour and other boats nudge alongside, is a small mountain of the freshest possible crab cooked with chili, black beans, garlic and spring onions.

"You have to earn your reputation," says Master Ng. "You have to give up your normal job. Some private kitchens nobody goes."

But to others, everybody wants to go. And so should you.

IF YOU GO TO HONG KONG

INFORMATION

-- For details on travel to Hong Kong, seediscoverhongkong.com.

-- For reviews of private kitchens, see magazines such as Time Out Hong Kong or HK Magazine. Book before you leave home either by telephone or over the web. Wine lists are limited but most places allow you to bring your own bottle with no corkage fee. Tax on wine was recently removed in Hong Kong, and there are many wine shops selling imports at fair prices. Book before you leave home either by telephone or over the web.

-- It takes some effort to get to Red Kitchen so seats are not too hard to obtain. Take the MTR (subway) to Kam Tin station, and then a taxi. The address is Red Brick House, Kam Sheung Rd., Yuen Long, but take the phone number, 3060 9388, so the driver can call for directions. Bookings are also accepted by e-mail at redkitchen@live.hk, but keep the English simple. Master Ng consults on allergies before cooking. Menus start from HK $200 ($25) per person.

-- Le Blanc cuisine française is at 6/F, 83 Wanchai Rd. Telephone 3428 5824 for bookings, and see blanc.com.hk. There's a minimum charge of HK $290 ($36) per person, and a generous meal for two will be about HK $1000 ($125). Try Sundays and public holidays to increase your chances of obtaining a table.

-- Liberty Private Works accepts bookings one month ahead at libertypw.com. The address is 3/F, 12 Wellington St., Central. Call 5186 3282. Availability is better on weekdays for the single 8 p.m. sitting. Dinner is HK$ 700 per person for eight courses plus amuse bouche and including two desserts.

-- No English is spoken at Shun Kee, so enlist the assistance of your hotel to call 8112 0075, and to gain detailed directions to the pier in the typhoon shelter on Gloucester Rd. The earliest pick-up is 6.30 p.m. There are set menus for two, four, six and eight persons, beginning at HK $1080 ($134) for two but dropping per head as numbers increase. One cold soft drink, water, or beer is included.

Egypt uprising art brightens Cairo

A flowering of Egyptian art since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak is adding color to the capital Cairo and an upswing in business at the city's galleries, as the pride, anger and optimism of a long-frustrated generation plays out on canvas.

Politically-inspired photography, graphic design and graffiti sprayed or stencilled on walls, fences, bridges and fly-overs have flourished since the 18-day uprising toppled the autocratic leader.

Across Cairo, faces of protesters killed during the uprising are immortalized on concrete, fists are shown breaking free from ropes and ancient mummies scream "I am free!."

Much of the street art reflects pride in the movement that united Egyptians across class and religion to put an end to decades of calcified politics and a gaping rich-poor divide.

In Nasr City, a beautiful woman is spray-painted on a fence surrounding a plot of disused land, her dress in the flowing colors of Egypt's red, white and black national flag. Further west in Mohandiseen, an imam and a priest are shown standing hand in hand on the side of one building.

Elsewhere it is darker, angrier. One image painted on a disused building shows a man writhing in chains wrapped tight around his body.

Other graffiti shows anger toward Mubarak and his family -- the former leader is depicted scowling arrogantly or with his head in a noose -- or anxiety at whether Egypt's military rulers really want to deliver the country to democratic civilian rule.

An army officer sketched on a wall in a busy street asks passers-by "man antum?" (who are you?), an allusion to Muammar Gaddafi's disdainful question aimed at Libyan rebels, implying that the military council holds Egyptians in similar contempt.

"ENORMOUS INTEREST"

Some art dealers say the movement is grabbing the attention of collectors at home and abroad.

"There's an enormous interest and push for the graffiti artists, for the illustrators, for the new comic books that are coming out," said William Wells, Director of Cairo's Townhouse Gallery. "At the moment, foreigners are coming through the city constantly looking for them."

Mona Said, owner of Safar Khan gallery, said she received strong interest in her first "To Egypt with Love" exhibition at the gallery in March. The exhibition displayed photography and graphic artwork inspired by the uprising.

"I sold four times what I expected to sell," said Said. "I shipped all over the world."

Hossam Hassan, who combines photography, digital design and painting, depicted protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square at Safar Khan's gallery.

He said the beige background of his canvases reflects a decaying feeling on the eve of the uprising.

"Everything was cloudy, beige, colourless, tasteless before the revolution. These people came with their energy and injected this red, orange, yellow energy into Egypt," he said, pointing to the splashes of color on the paintings.

Hassan says his work on the uprising will be exhibited in European capitals including Vienna and London this year and will appear next year in a Paris exhibition commemorating the first day of the uprising, January 25.

FEARS OF CENSORSHIP

Other artists hope their depictions of the revolution will promote social causes they say were neglected under Mubarak, who is on trial accused of authorizing the use of live ammunition to shoot protesters, of corruption and abuse of power.

Hanan el-Nahrawy, a deaf-mute artist who has produced surrealistic oil and ink images of Mubarak, said -- through her son who interprets for her -- that she wants to spread awareness for deaf-mutes who received little care under the former leader.

"Mubarak did not like the disabled, whatever their disability," said Nahrawy. "In the days of (previous president) Anwar al-Sadat, there was more attention to the disabled."

One of Nahrawy's canvases depicts the Nile flowing through Mubarak's face, its delta branching off in vein-like lines on his forehead. A small fist carrying tear-shaped nooses is painted on one of his cheeks, while small images of people carrying Egypt's flag chip away at the other.

"These are the protesters trying to find out what's hidden, how much he owns," said Nahrawy. "The veins are like the reverberations of an earthquake. The revolution shook Mubarak."

Another of Nahrawy's works shows the Nile passing through an image that combines Mubarak's face with that of Hussein Salem, a close confidant of the former president charged with squandering public funds. Dollar signs fill the background.

Inspiration from the country's political upheaval is mixed with fears of political censorship by Egypt's army, which has ruled since Mubarak's overthrow on February 11. Rights groups worry over the army's use of military trials in cases where civilians criticized its actions.

Many artists are concerned that religious conservatives now vying for power may try to exert pressure that will curb freedom of expression.

"We've moved into a situation that's a little bit disturbing with the army now adopting similar tactics in terms of censorship that we had prior to February 11," said Wells.

Hassan said the diversity of religion and culture that has inspired artists in Egypt is under threat from strict Islamist groups such as the Salafists.

"This is not right for Egypt. We'll go back to where we were before the revolution and worse," said Hassan.

"The beauty of Egypt is its diversity. I get very upset when Islamists or Salafists say 'Egypt is Islamist, it has to be this' ... the depth and strength of Egypt is that it's Coptic (Christian), Pharoanic, Muslim, modern and old."