Manhole Covers

I stumbled across the links to manhole covers at Pink Tentacle the other day. I was happy to see the fLickR photo pool. I have taken a few such photos myself, but I always felt a little stupid doing it, like a tourist who photographs all the post boxes, fire hydrants, telephone poles, and so on.

Two photos I had taken were at Tokyo University, where the waterworks bear the imprint of the Imperial University, or Tei(koku)Dai(gaku). That runs top to bottom, and Ge-Sui (Under-Water) runs right to left, imperialist style.

The one that follows that says Tokyo Imperial University, fully spelled out, with the character Den, for electron, 'lecticity, lightning, etc in the middle.

I thought that it was interesting how the waterworks of empires always survive the empires. That may hold for some electrical systems, too. Not sure how PVC piping will affect that equation.

I see that Pink Tentacle's post was picked up by BoingBoing. My two ¥en: search google images for the Japanese expression (mannho-ru no futa), マンホールの蓋, instead, to get away from the derivative links and get closer to Japanese sources of such photographs.

I am uploading two other contributions here.