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  Walking through the bustling streets of Japan, people often look up at the colourful signs, but few notice the many different forms of artwork on some manhole covers. When tourists walk in the streets of different cities in Japan, they can see various manhole cover art works, and on these manhole covers, they can see the different cultures represented by each city. When visitors walk the streets of Tokyo, For instance, they can see many manhole covers with graffiti of Mount Fuji. When they walk the streets of Nara, they can see the Nara animal, the deer, on the manhole cover. In the eyes of Japanese artists, manhole cover arts are street artworks with the most cultural and practical functions. A manhole cover, which usually lasts for about 20 years, it's the city's calling card, allowing visitors to know where they are as they walk down the street and get a sense of the local character at a glance. So far, there are more than 6,000 designs on manhole cover, and there are ar...

  Sushi（ 🍣 ） Although sushi has become a worldwide phenomenon over the years, it has undeniably become one of Japan's culinary and historical symbols. Sushi is arguably one of the most iconic Japanese foods and can be found in all kinds of sushi restaurants in all corners of the world. There is a Japanese proverb that says "Where there is fish, there is sushi". Sushi originated from a fermented food from Southeast Asia called Narezushi, which evolved into the modern style of sushi during the Edo period in Japan. More importantly, the food itself, sushi, represents the mannerisms and eating habits of the Japanese people. In Japan, there are some default sushi restaurant rules that customers are expected to follow. The stereotype is that the chef should be in the back of the house preparing delicious food for the guests. In Japanese sushi restaurants, however, these chefs are known as 'artisans', who demonstrate the process of making sushi at the customer's tab...

“Thus travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty. For in traveling to a truly foreign place, we inevitably travel to moods and states of mind and hidden inward passages that we’d otherwise seldom have cause to visit”（Pico,2000）. Hello my name is Paul and I'm from Shanghai, I am a second year student from the University of Melbourne. Whether it's by plane or by train, breathing in the fresh air of a strange city whenever you arrive at your destination is excited. For me, traveling is a leisure activity to relax myself and experience the charm of other countries' cultures at the same time. I love to try other countries' specialties and visit local museums whenever I travel, and my blog usually focuses on the places I've traveled, usually in Asia. I'd love to talk about the countries I'm...