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Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture. Taken near the Nagara River, famous for the practise of "ukai". |
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Gifu. Ukai is cormorant fishing. Hence the cormorants and tasty fishies on the manhole covers. The guys who do it still wear traditional gear including groovy grass skirts. |
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Gifu. Those are my friend Itou Masayo's toes. She's a Gifu native so was able to take me to beautiful places including a great onsen in Gifu Hashima, her hometown. We also had yummy local sweets. |
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Gifu. Tiny geometric specimen. |
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Gifu. A bigger version. |
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Gujohachiman. Gifu Prefecture. A beautiful old castle town in the mountains with lots of traditional architecture. Famous for its dance festival but we arrived after it was over. Also famous for its pure water and the fascinating system the locals have for keeping it that way. And famous for making that fake food you get in restaurant windows. And fish, I gather. |
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Hikone. Shiga Prefecture. When I went to Shiga-ken for the Ulfuls concert in Yasu I did some sightseeing in Hikone first. Nice place, with an authentic castle and a very nice garden nearby. |
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Hikone. |
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Himeji. Hyogo Prefecture. Stap me vitals. The last Himeji manhole cover photo was taken over five years ago. It's on the first page. I was back in town to see The 50 Kaitenz and found this. I found the gig too, fortunately. |
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Himeji. Nearly missed my train after spotting this one mid-dash. The only MHC I've seen to depict Himeji's most famous feature, the most excellent castle. And how cute is this? A very nice touch are the shapes to each side of the castle that reflect the shapes of the arrow/gun/boiling oil slits in the castle walls. |
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Hiwasa. Tokushima Prefecture, on the southern coast. The official name of the town is now "Minami-cho" but the "minami" doesn't mean "south" it means "beautiful wave". |
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Hiwasa. Went over during Obon with Jimi again for the Awa Odori and decided to do some sightseeing as well. Hiwasa is home to Yakuoji, temple #23 of the 88 temple Shikoku pilgrimage, which I chose for my annual chat with my sadly missed friend Gunny. It's a way cool place. |
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Hiwasa. Lovely scenery and a beautiful temple aren't all that Hiwasa has going for it. It's also a place where loggerhead turtles come every summer to lay their eggs on Ohama Beach. So there's a Chelonian Museum there with 2-year old, 1-year old and hatchling loggerheads in tanks, amongst other things turtley. |
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Hiwasa. And because it's the town that the turtles come to they feature on the manhole covers! |