Always look down when you are in Japan.
Most cities in Japan have at least one or two manhole cover designs that they use for most of the city manholes. I'm not sure why this started, but it is a thing now, with city manholes sporting interesting pictures showing some scene that reflects something about the city: either a famous flower in the area, a landmark, a bit of local history, or other.
My friend @boxcarblue wrote about this not so long ago and another friend made an entire website dedicated to showing off all the manhole cover designs in all of Japan.
The manhole cover shown here is from Okazaki, the city I've lived for the past 15 years, near Nagoya. The event shown is the city sending the rice tax to the Shogun. In the Edo era tax was a certain number of koku, one koku being the average amount of rice a person needed in one year—roughly 280 liters (or roughly 8 bushels). The tax for Okazaki was 50,000 koku, making it a smaller domain. Despite being small, the area received special privilege because Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, was born here. You can see Okazaki castle in the background of the scene.
If you like this random photo from Japan, be sure to check out @kaliju's simply spectacular Random Korea series. The latest entry there is Random Korea #4 - Busy faces, Lotte places, and Starbucks flavors!
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