Postcard from Japan: Tuesday, October 25, 2016, Part One

The flower, tachiaoi, is Shizuoka's theme on most of the
manhole covers which seem most often to be on the
sidewalks.  There are covers in the streets but
I don't have to venture out onto the big main streets,
only the small back streets. 

Small round well access.

The next morning I venture out after making green tea--- oh, I do love the flavor!  Of course, one of the first things I start taking pictures of are the manhole covers.

There are even rectangular manhole covers.

Access to well water.

Firefighters' water access.

One of the other fascinating things you see along any road near businesses or residential areas are beverage vending machines.  When I was a student long ago the first one I'd ever come upon actually talked.  That's a really scary experience when you're by yourself and you're not expecting a voice!  Many of the vending machines offer beer and the other students and I wondered if the voice was telling us we weren't old enough to get beer out of the machine.  Of course, she was just thanking us for our purchase.

It's barely 7:30am so the sidewalks are rather quiet still with only little kids walking to school and a few business men going to work.  I love the ceramic mosaics ringing the trees along the main street.  In the photograph, the rings look flat to the ground but actually many of them are elevated to accommodate how the roots of the tree have risen above the sidewalk.


And more manhole covers, although an adult couldn't fit through many of these.

Shizuoka used to have a castle, like Himeji-Jo pictured in my last Saturday's post on Oct. 22.  Shizuoka's castle, Sunpu-Jo, was destroyed during WWII, but the city has been slowly rebuilding it and so there's a manhole cover representing it.

A cover celebrating Shizuoka's castle, Sunpu-Jo.  It's
the water turn-off connection.

Access to water turn-off valve.

I'm realizing that I should return soon to Akiko's but I actually have walked around in a circle, so I spent a while figuring out exactly what little back street to take to her house.  Everything is on a grid, fortunately, but I walk for a little....