Shouben Kozou (小便小僧）

When you've been living somewhere for so long, you become acclimated - not just to the weather, of course, but to the environment as a whole. You cease to notice things sometimes...but every now and then, you DO notice, and life is good!

When we were riding the train through Hamamatsu-cho in Tokyo a few weeks ago, we just had to get a photo of the little "pissing boy" statue.



Apparently, the shouben kozou (pissing boy or cupid) is based on the famous statue in Brussels called the Manneken Pis. Either way, it's a pretty cute little statue and he turns up in unusual places...

Last weekend, on our way home from off-roading around Mt. Fuji, we had the good luck to make a wrong turn and find this tiny local fire-house, complete with a shouben kozou painted on the garage door:




I'm just thankful that the kozou is around to shouben on the fire!