Time and Pavement

This pavement didn't feel special to me back when I first moved to Japan and then I saw it almost every day for two and a half years. My daughter remarked on how interesting it was on our recent trip back through our old stomping grounds and I felt I had to take a picture to capture the moment and feeling. Something that even to my nascent-to-Japan eyes seemed only a little special or different was immediately recognizable to my Japanese American kid as definitely special and even intriguing.

I don't really know why the pavement has this pattern but I think the difference in population density explains a little of it. We live in a busier small city in the north, so pavement is racked with the yellow tracks to aide the visually impaired rather than fanciful vaguely-floral lines. Another aspect is that in this smaller mountain town, big big quakes aren't as common of an occurence where our neck of the woods has a real whopper every thirty years or so. They haven't had to change it, so it retains this nice, kind of retro feel.

Does your area have interesting pavement designs?