Team Japan competes during the team free preliminaries of artistic swimming at the 19th FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (Photo by Anna Szilagyi/AP Photo)
Japan is a country full of art. Much of this is housed in museums and galleries, but others are right under our feet. We speak, of Japan’s peculiar obsession with manhole covers. Almost anywhere in the country you can find manhole covers with spectacular grounds, each more beautiful and complex than the previous. In recent years, S. Morita photographer has traveled around Japan and leave us this great gathering on the beautiful and artistic Japanese manhole covers.
Myouchin Munehisa, 44, as he finishes Hibashi iron bells made of iron on a production line at Myochin Honpo shop on April 25, 2014 in Himeji, Japan. Myochin family's iron business, started in the Heian period (794-1185) of Japan as an armor and helmet maker, shifted as the needs of people changed in the course of history. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
Tsukimi Ayano steps out of her house in the village of Nagoro on Shikoku Island in southern Japan February 24, 2015. Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden. The life-sized straw doll resembled her father, so she made more. Today, the tiny village of Nagoro in southern Japan is teeming with Ayano's hand-sewn creations, frozen in time for a tableau that captures the motions of everyday life. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)
Those lights are actually bioluminescent shrimp, better known as sea fireflies, or, in Japan, as “umibotaru”. Visible every year from May until the end of October, they live in the sand around very shallow sea water and are often seen floating between the extremes of high and low tides. Here: Bioluminescent sea fireflies glittering like diamonds on the rocks and sand. Okayama, Japan. July 2016. (Photo by Trevor Williams/Jonathan Galione/Getty Images)
South Korean bee farmer Ahn Sang-Kyu protests Japan's claim of sovereignty over disputed islets May 2, 2006 in Seoul, South Korea. Ahn, a local bee farmer, released over 140,000 bees and attracted them to his body to protest Japan's sovereignty claims over a tiny group of islands located off the east coast of South Korea, called the Dokdo islets by the Koreans and Takeshima by the Japanese. The volcanic islets located about 90 kilometres east of South Korea's Ullung Island, have been a source of diplomatic friction between South Korea and Japan for years. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
“Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is an amusement park consisting of an aquarium, shopping mall, hotel, marina and amusement rides. It is located in Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Japan. It opened for business on May 8, 1993”. – Wikipedia
Photo: Shoal of sardines and sharks swim in a tank at Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise on March 19, 2009 in Yokohama, Japan. (Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images)
A woman holds a hedgehog at the Harry hedgehog cafe in Tokyo, Japan, April 5, 2016. In a new animal-themed cafe, 20 to 30 hedgehogs of different breeds scrabble and snooze in glass tanks in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district. Customers have been queuing to play with the prickly mammals, which have long been sold in Japan as pets. The cafe's name Harry alludes to the Japanese word for hedgehog, harinezumi. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)