In Japan, most of the institutions and places useful for tourists are marked in English, but when outside the tourist areas it might be useful to know some basic signs…

One of them could be the Post Office service mark 〒, (called yūbin māku), a sign stylized from the katakana テ ("te"). The symbol comes from the word teishin, which means “communication” and it is so widely used to indicate the postal code, that it was even included in the Japanese character sets (the Unicode character U+3012). The sign is displayed printed in red, as you can see on the left side of the building in this photo, and old post office building in Inuyama.

Post Office, Inuyama

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Yesterday’s Japan Photo: Shinto Shrines, Temizuya