A day for palindromes

A palindrome is a word, phrase, name, or number that reads the same forward or backward. If you were wondering if they have palindromes in Japanese; yes they do. And not just words, but set phrases that read the same from left to right as right to left. They even learn them in school. Moreover, they have a day for palindromes. Today and December 21st annually is "回文の日", "palindrome day"! 

The feature photo of this post represents a palindrome. It was the first Japanese palindrome that came to mind: 'Tomato'!  In Japanese: とまと. As you can see its the same whichever direction you read it. I find it particularly interesting that they learn palindrome phrases in elementary school. Such as, "庭のワニ" niwa no wani, which means "crocodile in the garden"! In the english language palindrome phrases aren't as commonly known. Perhaps the best known one is "Never odd or even". But even with an Internet search I couldn't find many examples. 

I had some fun with the kids this morning coming up with palindromes in Japanese. I'm particularly interested in the phrase ones and am keen to try and think of more in the English language as there are plenty documented in Japanese.