Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the city, the manhole features the Hori River and Naya Bashi (納屋橋).
100 周年を記念して、名古屋市の中心部を流れる堀川と広小路通が交差する「納屋橋」
This looks awfully similar to Fukuoka City’s manhole design. Clearly someone was influenced by someone else.
The older manhole covers feature an amenbo or "Water skipper" (gerridae).
Saga City, Drainage
Saga City’s manhole features the venerable mutsugorô (mudskipper), an amphibious fish that can use its pectoral fins to walk on land.
Saga City, Sewage
Saga City, Gas
Saga is one of those prefectures that not many people outside of the region know anything about. I used to joke that Saga was little more than the prefecture you had to drive through to get to Nagasaki, but in all fairness, the quiet prefecture has a lot of charm and quite a few places that are worth visiting. Takeo, a town famous for its hot spring, is rather nice. My favorite Japanese architect, Kingo Tatsuno, designed the gate and building housing the main public bath in the town. Karatsu to the north is also a town with a lot to see. Then there are the ceramic centers of Imari, Hasami, and Arita. So, while Saga City is not the most inspiring of towns, the prefecture itself has a lot going for it.
Yamé City, Sewage
For a city that has so much that distinguishes it from other towns in the prefecture—namely, Yamé cha (tea) and Yamé ningyō (dolls)—they sure did choose a boring manhole design. What is the message they are trying to convey? That the sun never sets in this city? Well, I'm sorry to say, the sun did in fact set on this sleepy town a very long time ago. The origin of the town’s name Yamé (八女, lit. “8 woman”) comes from the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀, also known as The Chronicles of Japan), the second oldest book of classical Japanese history, which claimed that a goddess named Yame Tsuhime (八女津姫) lived in the region. For more on Yamé, go here.