manhole in MITO city

This manhole was spotted by us in Mito. Andrea and I attended a workshop on teaching children. Though the capital of Ibaraki, Mito definitely has a more traditional feeling than Tsukuba. I could not help but notice people tended to stare more and be infinitely confused us two gals: one black-haired Snow White fair-skinned Caucasian; a fluent in English 'Japanese' girl. Hee hee.

Oh the scariest coincidence - the guy with the disconcerting stare from the potluck party a few weeks ago was at the workshop. Ugh, what are the chances. Eeks. I pretended not to notice him but again he approached with his ever-so favorite line, "haven't I seen you somewhere before?" I said, "oh, perhaps you are right...oh right at that party, oh yes, how funny..." and continued to talk to the woman whom I was chatting with before he intruded into our conversation. I don't like to talk about people like this but he really creeps me out, even my Japanese friend told me there was something a bit off-the-wall about him. Scaryyy.